Enhancing Employability: Transforming students perception of the concept of an 'Educational Professional’

1. Enhancing Employability: Transforming students perception of the concept of an 'Educational Professional’ Anesa Hosein, Namrata Rao and Pat Hughes

2. Outline of Presentation • Destinations/ Employability of Education Studies Graduate at Liverpool Hope University • Background of the Study • Methods of Data Collection • Preliminary Results • Conclusions • Where Next?

3. LHU Ed. Studies Graduate Destination (2008/2009) • Less than 35% go onto study, of which 19% are study only • The 19% study only would include those who probably go onto do a PGCE

4. LHU Education Studies Graduate Jobs (2008/2009) • Most of the graduates work in the non-graduate sector • However, in 35 other universities over 60% of their graduates in Ed. Studies degrees also go onto to do non-graduate work

5. LHU Ed. Studies Employment

6. Background of Study • The challenge: • Students on an Education Studies programme see mainly one end job (our belief!): • To become a teacher • Purpose: enhance employability of these Education Studies students • Method: Through one of the courses here at Hope: • Educational Professional course • Raise awareness of different job prospects within the field of education • Help to cultivate an attitude of thinking about possible different jobs and their requirements

7. Background of Study • Students take this course in their 2nd Year • The purpose of the course is to: • Enhancing the awareness of the different professions within education • Roles: teachers, education and training in the community, and the wider children’s workforce, life-long learning • A push to creating a personal development plan

8. Personal Development Plans • At the beginning of the course, students are required to: • Create/ update their curriculum vitae • Prepare an action or personal development plan • Optional: Look at job profiles on the internet or newspapers • Lecture on creating and keeping a reflective journal

9. Lectures in Educational Professional • Lectures designed to raise awareness of possible employment opportunities within the education sector: • Course Lectures • Role of teachers: primary and secondary • Role of teaching assistant and learning mentors • Extended school services • External Lectures/ Activities • Museum Education • Further Education • Prison Education • Family and Community Education

10. Purpose of Study • To ascertain what are the career choices of students on the Educational Professional course • To ascertain how they view an Educational Professional i.e. • Do the students mainly view an educational professional as someone who is a teacher? • If so, to modify their view of an educational professional in order to consider other career options

11. Definition of an Educational Professional • This presentation takes and extends the definition of an educational professional from Hughes (2009) • An educational professional is defined as any person who has a role and responsibility with working with children in schools and adults in life long educational settings. • These roles may be multi-professional (e.g. health officer, police officer) as well as multi-agency (e.g. health trusts, police force).

12. Study • Two Phases • Phase 1: Longitudinal Survey (completed) • Survey 1: Beginning of the academic year • Survey 2: End of the academic year • Phase 2: Interviews (to start)

13. Study Methods: Survey 1 • Beginning of the course, Education Professional: students filled in a questionnaire. • Students were asked three questions: • What job or career (or other activity) are you planning on pursuing at the end of your degree? • Why this job or career (or activity)? • What is your idea of an educational professional?

14. Survey 2: End of The Academic Year • End of the academic year • Filled in the questionnaire with the same three questions • Additional set of questions on international and cultural perspectives of an educational professional

15. Preliminary Results: Survey 1 • Educational Professional Class • 74 female students: 71% • 30 male students: 29% • 78 responses (approximately: 75% response rate) • 63 female students: 81% • 15 male students: 19% • 69 (88%) of the respondents indicated they were considering a job in teaching or becoming a teacher • Of which 32 (46%) specifically indicated they wanted to become a primary school teacher • Of which 6 (19%) of these were male students

16. Survey 2 • 42 responses (response rate: 40%) • 36 female students (86%) • 6 male students (14%) • 27 (64%) of the respondents indicated they were considering a job in teaching • Of which 11 (41%) specifically indicated they wanted to work in primary education • Of which 2 (18%) were male students

17. Matched Survey • This presentation concentrates on the matched survey • 39 students answered the questionnaire twice • 34 female students • 5 male students • 36 of these indicated a desire to teach in Survey 1 • 26 of these indicated a desire to teach in Survey 2

18. Definitions of Educational Professional (Preliminary) • Definitions were coded as follow (one definition could be coded twice): • Teacher • Skills • Qualification • Generic • Staff Identification • Other • Purpose • Payment • Unclear

19. Teacher Definition • This was a definition oriented towards a teaching metaphor i.e. Information transfer • “An individual who has the skills to teach others and pass on their knowledge to other people” F, 20 • “Somebody who understand peoples' learning needs that use a range of teaching methods” F, 20

20. Generic Definition • This definition is more in keeping with the definition used in this presentation – i.e. Someone who works in an educational setting being multi-professional and multi-agency • “A person whose role includes working with children and young people to support learning in everyday life” F, 23 • “Educational Professional as seen as someone who is employed in or school-based environment or someone who works in partnership with schools” F, 21

21. Qualifications Definition • This definition relates to the need of someone having earned a degree or certificate i.e. a qualification to be an educational professional • “Someone who is qualified in some area of education ... This can be in or outside of an education setting”, F, 20 • “An individual with a degree or certificate working in a career with educational roles e.g. Police, teacher, nurse” F, 20

22. Staff Identification • This is a list of possible educational professional jobs rather than a definition • “Teacher, TA, Ed Psyc, Admin staff, medical staff in school, social workers, school governors etc” F, 21 • “Someone who teaches and encourages all aspects of learning, including current and life long. I also think this includes those who contribute anything towards education; officers; mentor etc.” F, 20 (also teacher definition)

23. Skills Definition • This definition indicated the type of skills that an educational professional should have or a referral to the educational professional needing skills • “Well conducted (?) / good role model. Considerate to individual needs. Polite/ Well spoken” M, 20 • “Educational professional is an individual that has the skills and knowledge to help and influence people” F, 19

24. Definitions • 20 of the students were considered to have given a similar definition from the beginning of the year to the end of the year • Survey 1: “Someone who works within the school environment, aiding a child's progression” • Survey 2: “Anyone who has contact with a school in an education context” F, 27, Generic definitions

25. Definitions • 18 of the students gave improved definitions: • Survey 1: “Everyone from teacher, tutor, admin staff, who has contact with a student or a students' work day” • Survey 2: “Someone that works with an individual, family or school to help improve the quality of education, to improve their ideas of education. To improve attainment of not only children but parents and other adults too. To cross barriers that people may face.” F, 28 (Staff identification to generic definition)

26. Number of Definitions

27. Changing Idea of An Educational Professional • The number of “teacher definitions” had fallen from Survey 1 (12) to Survey 2 (1) • The number of “generic definitions” had increased from Survey 1 (14) to Survey 2 (34) • But did this changing idea of an educational professional transform what students were thinking about in terms of their prospective careers?

28. Jobs • 29 of the students in Survey 1 still indicated that they would like to do the same job by the end of Survey 2 • 26 of these students who wanted to teach in Survey 1 were still considering to teach • Of which 3 were considering teaching but something else as well • 8 students were no longer consider entering the teaching profession • Learning mentors, social workers, prison education, foster care, play therapists, speech therapists

29. Why the Change? • Understanding the job description • “After learning the job description I realised I wanted to go into this profession” F, 19 (Learning Mentor) • Mixing interests • “I have always wanted to teach but since leaving school, I wanted to join the police and this is my way of combining them. I am serious about this as a career” F, 20 (Prison Education) • “Lots of what we did this year has made me question what I want to do. Speech and Language/ Prison Education interests me alot” F, 21 (Teaching/ Speech and Language/ Prison Education)

30. Why the Change? • Non direct educational setting • “Because I am interested in working with children but in a non-educational capacity” F, 20 (Play Therapist) • “Would like to work with families to improve their children's education and attainment”, F, 28 (Family Mentor)

31. Conclusions • A majority of students are considering a profession in teaching • Considering the limited number of PGCE places they will be disappointed • Changing their concept of an educational professional, providing knowledge of other jobs and their requirements can probably help them align themselves better in the job market and avoid disappointment • Additionally, be able to show them how they can combine a number of their different interests

32. Where Next? • Interview students considering the teaching profession to investigate what other jobs they are considering if they do not get their first choice • Determine from interviews whether the choice of these different education professional jobs have made them more open to considering a non-teacher education job • Determine whether the creation of their curriculum vitae and personal development plans got them thinking about their different job prospects • Investigate why some students change/ not change their choice of job career