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Work Related LearningReport on HEA funded
Scoping Study
Jane Weir, Director, Careers Service
Background
• Commitment to enhancing student
employability
• SFC’s ‘Learning to Work’ report
• Work of the QAA Enhancement Theme on
Employability
• WRL emerging as a huge challenge
• Application to SFC for Strategic Change
Grant funding
• Contact with HEA for support
Outline of three-year project
Three phases with associated activities:
•Feasibility: to provide evidence base for
phases 2 & 3, ongoing research in WRL
throughout project
•Implementation and best practice:Development
of placements/internships and related
opportunities, pilot projects in 6 non-vocational
subject disciplines
•Establishing models for
sustainability:Embedding of WRL activity within
curricula and production of staff development
materials
Relevance of Scoping Study
• To provide a baseline of knowledge for
a more focused feasibility study in
Phase 1 of project
• Scoping study will identify the primary
sources for investigating the best
sector-wide strategic and operational
approaches to embracing WRL
• Will help clarify what we mean by WRL
Project Objectives
• To identify and categorise the range of UKwide strategic institutional and operational
WRL activity
• To examine methods that have been effective
in promoting, disseminating and sustaining
strategic and operational WRL activities
• To disseminate outputs to stakeholders
across the UK and feed into other work by
HEA
• To conduct study between March and July
2006
Preliminary findings
• Term ‘work related learning’ used in HE as a
generic term to mean broadly development of
work-relevant skills and awareness of workdifferent terms used interchangeably by
practitioners
• Depending on definition used, scope of activities
which come under heading will vary
• Moreland’s definition considered to be clearest:
‘Involving students learning about themselves
and the world of work and their wider lives’
Preliminary findings
• Considerable amount of WRL activity
underway within HEIs
• However, wide range of activities in nonvocational subjects, involving diversity of
approaches
• Much of this activity not been identified under
WRL but more as ‘enhancing employability of
undergraduate students’
Different categories
• Enhancing employability:new employability
modules, mentoring programmes, enterprise
workshops, voluntary work, clubs & societiesoften add-ons
• Development of work related skills:FDs,
HNDs, WBL (in the form of whole degree
programmes)
• Support for WRL:reporting of WRL in PDP,
Staff Development
Identified Gaps
• Very little evaluative evidence in existencearea populated by descriptive case studieslittle or no research undertaken on the
effectiveness of different approaches
• Research that does exist tends to focus on
specific activities (e.g. work placements) is
usually descriptive more than evaluative
Issues
• No consensus on what should be included in
WRL
• Key problems -about assessments in the
workplace and giving support to workplace
learning
• Evidence that some student groups less likely
to take up work placement opportunities
• Challenges of sustaining employability
projects beyond the development phase
• Need better evaluative evidence (I.e.
indicators of successful WRL outcomes)
Issues (continued)
• Lack of inter-connectedness of various
WRL activities within HEIs
• Despite the level of progress that has
been made to enhance employability, it
is still a challenge to give WRL
opportunities for all students in HEespecially in research-led HEIs