Exploring Employability Skills through Service-Learning

1. Identifying and Assessing Employability Skills within Service-Learning Dr. Susan J. Deeley University of Glasgow, UK

2. Rationale Skills acquired through service-learning are already conducive to producing employable graduates Service-learning provides • placement in a work situation • opportunity for students’ intellectual and personal development (Deeley, 2010; Kearney, 2004; Eyler, 2000)

3. Rationale Graduate employment is more competitive because of • the massification of higher education • the economic recession

4. Rationale “one of the things I have noticed since leaving university is that employers look beyond a degree, (which) isn’t a sufficient demonstration of skills” (Graduate)

5. Rationale The Dearing Report expressed the need for graduates to be equipped to contribute to the national economy (NCIHE, 1997) Leitch Review 2004 recommended skills development for graduate employability in UK universities

6. Defining employability “multi-dimensional concept” (Lees, 2002, p. 2) • skills • abilities • competencies • capabilities • knowledge • attributes • attitudes

7. Employability skills Described in various ways (Lees, 2002) • key • core • transferable • generic

8. Employability “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, p. 7)

9. Research aims To identify employability skills within service-learning To suggest an appropriate assessment method for these skills

10. Research objectives To investigate • the effects of service-learning on the employability skills of students from their perspective • how students perceived the role of reflective journal writing in their employability skills development • what welfare agency staff identified as employability skills

11. Research participants • ten senior honours undergraduate students in Public Policy who had completed the service-learning course • seven Public Policy graduates who had completed the course • six members of welfare agency staff

12. Process of data analysis • digitally recorded data transcribed verbatim • overarching themes identified from the data • concept maps drawn to reflect emerging themes (Hay and Kinchin, 2006) • concept maps refined several times to clarify thematic framework • further intensive scrutiny and analysis of each transcript undertaken to make connections and cross cutting links between themes

13. Findings Three major themes • skills • service-learning • assessment

14. Skills • communication “connecting with others”; “people skills”; “getting on with other people and relating to them” • confidence • compatibility • time management (?) • critical thinking and critical reflection

15. Service-learning (placement) “trying to adapt was a skill” “relationship building skills” “I really gained a lot of confidence through the placement” (Undergraduates)

16. Service-learning “ I found (critical reflection) invaluable in my current job where I am constantly faced with conflict and difficult situations (handling complaints)” (Graduate)

17. Service-learning “I feel that one of the most important skills I gained during (the service-learning course) was the ability to reflect critically on my practice and to combine theory and action in order to aid this reflection and as a result of this to be self-aware and have the ability to improve upon my work” (Graduate)

18. Service-learning “I believe that I gained more skills which would increase my employability during the service-learning course than I did during the rest of my time at university” (Graduate)

19. Assessment Students thought that • “care must be given not to lose the original focus of the course” and that • employability skills should not be assessed in the reflective journal

20. Assessment • oral presentation an appropriate form of assessment • is a communication skill per se • to reflect on their employability skills development • to make a self-assessment

21. References Deeley, S.J. (2010) Service-learning: Thinking outside the box’, in Active Learning in Higher Education 11, 1, 43-53 Eyler, J.S. (2000) ‘What Do We Most Need to Know About the Impact of Service-Learning on Student Learning?’, in Michigan Journal of Community service Learning 7, 11-17 Hay, D.B. and Kinchin, I.M. (2006) ‘Using concept maps to reveal conceptual typologies’, in Education & Training 48, 2/3, 127-142 Kearney, K.R. (2004) ‘Students’ Self-Assessment of Learning through Service-Learning’, in American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 68, 1, 1-13 Lees, D. (2002) Graduate Employability. Literature Review York: LTSN Generic Centre Yorke, M. (2004) Employability in higher education: what it is – what it is not York: LTSN Generic Centre Yorke, M. and Knight, P.T. (2004) Embedding Employability into the Curriculum York: LTSN Generic Centre