Transcript Slide 1

Embedding employability, a
subject perspective
HEA Employability Conference: Defining and
developing your approach to employability:
17 October 2013
Peter Reddy, Reader in Psychology, Aston
University and Julie Hulme, Discipline Lead:
Psychology, HEA
Pecha Kucha / PechaKucha
• Pecha Kucha (Japanese: ペチャクチャ, IPA: [petɕa ku͍tɕa],
chit̥
chat)
• 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (six minutes and 40
seconds in total).
– keeps presentations concise and fast-paced
– multiple-speaker events called PechaKucha Nights (PKNs).
1. Why a Guide for Departments on
Employability in Psychology?
• Employability has become a major theme across UK HE
– It importance is clear in the 2011 report on The future of
undergraduate Psychology education in the United Kingdom
– It is a key issue for applicants and students and their parents
and advisors
– It has always been important
• The special position of psychology makes it particularly
important for our discipline
2. Why is employability important for our
discipline?
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Growth and economic change - a lot of psychology graduates
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BSc Psychology is non-vocational, but with confusing vocational aspects
– We may let our students down - they may overestimate vocational
opportunities, identify with ‘their’ discipline, fail to respond to the
range of opportunities that students of non-vocational degrees take
in their stride
•
This complication means that we have a special responsibility to our
students, and to psychology
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Employability is also a psychological concept – this is our territory
3. Growth
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Psychology f/t undergraduate numbers increased
– 25,847 in 1998/9
– 44,945 in 2008/9
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More broadly
– 50,000 university students in 1939,
– just over twice that in 1961,
– 300,000 in 1980 and
– about 2,500,000 now
– large increases in women, postgraduate and part-time students.
•
Two thirds of current universities did not exist 20 years ago and in
1981 nearly half of the 46 degree awarding universities were less
than 20 years old.
4. What do we mean by employability?
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The USEM model (Yorke and Knight, 2004)
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U
S
E
M
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Yorke (2006) employability - the achievements of the graduate and potential
to obtain a ‘graduate job’.
Understanding, of disciplinary material and, how the world works
Skilful practices in context, whether discipline based or more generic
Efficacy beliefs, including a range of personal attributes and qualities
Metacognition, including the capacity for reflection and self-regulation
– ‘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 (2004)
5….defining employability
• Harvey (2004) - an on-going developmental process, about
developing critical, empowered learners.
• Lowden, Hall, Elliot and Lewin (2011) distinction between
– a narrow focus on skills and attributes
– a broader approach (including skills and attributes) based on
values, intellectual rigor and engagement
• Underpinning all is a “can-do” approach, positive attitude,
willingness to contribute, openness to ideas, drive to make these
happen.
– Links to entrepreneurship and enterprise sought by employers &
innovation, creativity, collaboration and risk-taking.
6. What do our students have to offer?
• The QAA (2010) subject benchmark statement for psychology
– “…due to the wide range of generic skills, and the rigour with which
they are taught, training in psychology is widely accepted as
providing an excellent preparation for many careers. In addition to
subject skills and knowledge, graduates also develop skills in
numeracy, teamwork, critical thinking, computing, independent
learning and many others, all of which are highly valued by
employers” (p.2).
– “psychology is distinctive in the rich and diverse range of attributes
it develops – skills that are associated with the humanities (e.g.
critical thinking and essay writing) and the sciences (hypothesistesting and numeracy)” (p.5).
7. Is teaching for employability selling out to commerce?
A betrayal of the university tradition?
What would Newman or Humboldt have to say?
• Newman’s celebrated 19th Century justification of liberal
education* defends the university against the utilitarian
requirement for it to be useful. The same utilitarianism is
targeted by Dickens in Hard Times - these are the opening lines
spoken by the headmaster, Thomas Gradgrind:
– Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls
nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant
nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only
form the mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else
will ever be of any service to them.
* The idea of a University, originally lectures given in Dublin.
8. Is employability the return of Gradgrind, the
University as a factory to churn out graduates?
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Employability is not a reassertion of utilitarianism
– it is an ally of scholarship, liberal education and the university
tradition
– an integral part of educating the mind and cultivating
understanding.
•
University is about ways that assumptions can be questioned,
problems solved and boundaries extended as well as the transmission
of established knowledge and skills.
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It embraces self-knowledge and awareness, skills in research &
analysis, construction of adult professional identity and the
development of sophisticated epistemological awareness and aims at
the development of reflective, critically aware and ethically informed
global citizens.
9. University as a community of learning
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Humboldt (1810, cited in Elton) - the
university as a community of learning
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both teacher and student are there for the
sake of learning
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HE is about construction, not just
transmission
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Humboldt’s distinguishes between:
– School - knowledge as established fact
– University - scholarship as incompletely
solved problems
10. How can we support employability?
• Read the case studies – there are lots of ideas and examples
• Not a prescription – we hope it will stimulate creativity in
psychology and other disciplines and move the debate about
aims, content and method onwards
• Work experience for example
– There is a sandwich placement tradition….
– Most students also work part-time…
– …there is emerging practice in getting students to use, apply
and reflect on psychology in their workplaces
11. Definitions of learning
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Biggs (1999).
– ‘As we learn, our conceptions of phenomena change and we see
the world differently. The acquisition of information in itself does
not bring about such change, but the way we structure that
information and think with it does. Thus education is about
conceptual change, not just the acquisition of information.’
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Barnett (1990).
– ‘The learning that goes on in higher education justifies the label
“higher” precisely because it refers to a state of mind over and
above the conventional recipe or factual learning.’
• Cited in Brockbank and McGill (2007) pps 17-18
12. Teaching for employability
• Promote deep engagement with subject
– An intention to understand, interest in a subject and a desire
to achieve competence, read widely and relate new learning
to previous knowledge, intrinsic motivation, use of evidence,
inter-relating ideas.
• Meaning is generated through conversation, student activity &
interaction (Gibbs, 2002)
• The teacher is critical in creating the ‘object of study’ for the
student, needs to empathise so as to frame material in a way
that can be understood.
13. Psychology is at the heart of employability
• It is the academic heart of work and organisational behaviour
and informs human resource management, careers guidance,
coaching and consultancy.
• Psychologist, know thyself
– We address the individual and are concerned with selfawareness, growth and development, social behaviour and
cognition.
• We are a strongly research-focused discipline and employability
emphasises being able to bring research and critical thinking
skills to bear.
14. Practicalities – putting employability into
the psychology degree
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Embedding employability into a psychology degree suggests an
overarching rationale that infuses the whole degree.
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Employability is part of scholarship, academic excellence and higher
order intellectual capability.
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Making employability an explicit central feature prevents students
thinking that it is a separate, unimportant part of the curriculum
– This would mean putting employability, personal growth,
development and careers centre stage as part of what studying
psychology is about.
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Start work on employability as soon as students join - they are
receptive and learning about university study
15. Content - Personal Development
Planning
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To help students “plan, integrate & take responsibility for their personal,
career & academic development, identifying learning opportunities within
their academic programmes & extra-curricular activities”
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Uses personal profiles, skills audits, action plans, progress files,
academic and personal records, learning portfolios and reflective logs to
capture activity, reflection on activity and evidence of development.
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Students may focus on credit-bearing academic modules and grades
rather than a more balanced set of factors influencing their future
employment status, wealth and welfare.
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Can be part of a structured tutorial programme, a work or placement
preparation or a psychology in practice module
– needs to be included early, be mandatory and credit bearing.
16. Curriculum content for employability 2
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Psychology of undergraduate and early adult development.
– Teaching students about their own development can help them
reflect on their changing thinking and reasoning
– Lifespan development - Erikson (1978), Levinson (1996)
– Late adolescent / early adult cognitive development / development
of epistemological reasoning. Perry (1970) - evolution of male
student reasoning from thinking dualistically, to taking multiple
perspectives and using relativistic terms, and finally, to making a
commitment to what they value.
– Baxter Magolda (1992) development of epistemological reasoning
in women students
– Piaget, Vygotsky and Kohlberg - cognitive development and moral
judgement in later childhood, adolescence and early adulthood.
17. Curriculum content for employability 3
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Cognitive psychology - meta cognition, meta-cognitive development
and implications for study
Social psychology – relationships, their formation and dissolution
Personality psychology - occupational choice in the context of e.g.
locus of control
Individual differences and career psychology
– the ‘matching’ model - self-knowledge in relation to occupational
information (e.g. Holland, 1985).
– early adult move from idealism and exploration to greater realism
taking account of life roles & context (e.g. Super,1979)
– constructivist theory (Savickas, 2005) - vocational personality, life
themes, and career adaptability
• encourages individuals to go beyond objective understanding
of types and traits to query their subjective experiences of
themselves and the world around them.
18. Developmental context
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Levinson (1978, 1996) Early adulthood: 17 to 45
– Early adult transition: 17 to 22
– Entering the adult world: 22 to 28
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Transition can take 3 to 6 years. Within the broad eras are periods of
development, each characterized by a set of tasks and an attempt to
build or modify our life structure.
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In the Early Adult Transition the main tasks are to move out of the preadult world and to take a first step into the adult world.
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In every period is the ‘Dream’ - an imagined possibility generating
excitement and vitality, has a vision-like quality. A projection of our
ideal life, we are always becoming in relation to it. The dream is
modified and revised throughout life. (Tennant and Pogson,1995)
19. Employability and the psychology
professions
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BSc Psychology vocational aspects are largely illusory – only 20%
enter professional psychology, BSc only gets you to the start line
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Students easily underestimate how difficult it is to enter the psychology
professions
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We all want our student to have the best shot at the psychology
professions but needs a sensitive touch – see next slide
•
We must show our students
– the breadth of opportunity they have as well as the routes into
professional psychology
– how a grounding in psychology (psychological literacy) has value
and applicability in work and life
20. Clinical psychology
“I think we have been really pushed into
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Risks dominating career aspirations –
positioned as the best career, and for
the best
a red rag to the able, committed,
focused and successful
placement year seen as a unique
opportunity to short-cut the intense
competition for graduate assistant
posts
is it what students mean by
psychology?
staff want all to be ambitious and to
have opportunities
exposes poverty of students’ careers
thinking; we need wider models
(it)… a careers talk … that’s when it
started … very, very early on in my
degree.
…when you do your placement, and you
see people who are in that career … and
they’re telling you, you know, we’ve done
it, you can do it, and it’s having those
people telling you that, that really pushes
you...
It definitely… was put on a pedestal as…
this is one of the big jobs you can do…
…one of those jobs that it’s so rewarding.
…it can grow into you that clinical is the
best of the best and if you achieve that
you really have made it.
What do psychology graduates do?
15-20% pursue careers in professional psychology
% of
Psychology
graduates
Profession pursued
24.0 %
Other or unknown professions or continued studies
Social and welfare professions
Other clerical and secretarial occupations
Retail, catering, waiting and bar staff
Commercial, industrial and public sector managers
Business and financial professions
Other professional and technical occupations
Education professions
Marketing, sales and advertising professions
Health professions
Numerical clerks and cashiers
Arts, design, culture and sports professions
Information technology professions
Scientific research, analysis &development; legal & engineering professions
13.9%
13.7%
13.7%
8.1%
6.7%
4.4%
3.8%
3.7%
2.7%
2.1%
1.4%
1.0%
0.9%
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What skills do psychology graduates have?
IT
Numeracy
Literacy
Communication
Ethical awareness
Scientific literacy
Independent learning
Research
Interpersonal skills…
QAA (2010) – science, social science, humanities;
Trapp et al. (2011) – STEM+
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Methods of enhancing employability
Placements;
Modules – placement, or drawing on students’ own work/life
experience;
PDP and work-readiness (CVs, applications, interviews);
Specific content – e.g. career psychology;
Embedding….
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Curriculum matters: how does employability fit?
Psychology - the scientific study of human brain and
behaviour:
• Social;
• Developmental;
• Cognitive;
• Individual differences;
• Biological;
• Research methods and statistics;
• Others such as health, positive psychology, sport.
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Social psychology
• Increase team productivity in the workplace;
• Manage relationships, change, conflict;
• Reduce prejudice, promote equality of opportunity.
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Developmental psychology
• Understand the diversity resulting from typical and
atypical development;
• Take into account developmental changes associated with
ageing;
• Be aware of issues that arise due to my own
development, e.g. transition experiences, identity.
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Cognitive psychology
• What do people pay attention
to? - product placement and
marketing;
• How do people learn? –
training and development;
• Metacognition – selfawareness, reflection, selfdevelopment;
• Human-machine interactions.
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Individual differences
• Diversity of individuals in the workplace – culture, race,
educational background, intelligence, personality,
disability, age, sex, gender, appearance, etc;
• Diversity of customers/public in outward facing roles and
for design issues;
• Recognising strengths and weaknesses in team members
and colleagues.
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Biological psychology
• Often incorporates learning about e.g.
psychopathology/mental health;
• Understanding of actions of drugs and medications on the
brain, stress, sleep;
• Destigmatisation of mental illness and awareness of issues
in the workplace.
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Research methods and statistics
• Numeracy and statistical literacy – “number sense”;
• How to carry out a meaningful investigation?
• Communication skills and rational argument;
• Critical interpretation of every day information e.g. media,
internet;
• Market research, customer satisfaction…
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Psychology as preparation
Lifelong/lifewide independent
learning – jobs that have
not yet been invented,
technology that doesn’t
exist, huge and rapid
growth of information.
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So what do psychology departments do?
Traditional degree - preparation for professional psychology
training or research/academia.
BPS accreditation criteria – employability,
internationalisation and psychological literacy.
Interlinked concepts – e.g. intercultural competence, global
citizenship.
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Module – applying psychology to the workplace.
E.g. student produced a report looking at the social
psychology of workplace conflict – pay dispute, union
negotiations – in a banana-packing factory.
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Assessment – level-crossing safety.
Other aspects of psychological literacy.
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Psychology applied learning scenarios (PALS) – Norton,
2004.
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/subjects/psych
ology/PALS
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Using extracurricular activities such as managing student
societies (WUPS).
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An ‘international psychology’ module:
- Consider diversity of behaviour in an international context;
- Address global issues such as ageing, health and the
environment.
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Community psychology.
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Psychological literacy
Studying the real-world
relevance of the subject;
Problem-solving as part of the
learning process;
“Bringing psychology to life – and
life to psychology”;
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What does YOUR subject offer?
Are there opportunities within the curriculum, relevant topic
areas which relate to employability?
Do you make these issues explicit?
Are there implications for teaching methods?
Are there implications for assessments?
What do you do to embed employability within your
discipline, and what could you do better?
An opportunity to share practice.
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