Embedding employability: learning for workforce development

1. Embedding employability: learning for workforce development Peter Knight and Mantz Yorke Enhancing student employability: enhancing workforce development conference Birmingham, 27-28 January 2005

2. Overview • Employability. • Implications for the first degree. • ‘Employment is temporary, employability can be endlessly renewed.’ Examples include: • Mid-level qualifications, incl. foundation degrees. • Taught master’s degrees. • Professional doctorates. • Cross-cutting themes. • Part-time students. • The quality of non-formal learning.

3. Employability. • Implications for the first degree. • ‘Employment is temporary, employability can be endlessly renewed.’ Examples include: • Mid-level qualifications, incl. foundation degrees. • Taught master’s degrees. • Professional doctorates. • Cross-cutting themes. • Part-time students. • The quality of non-formal learning.

4. The ESECT view of employability A set of achievements, understandings and personal attributes that make individuals more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations. • Consistent with thinking in other countries — Hong Kong (Ed Ko), Australia (Simon Barrie), Canada (Alan Wright), USA (Marcia Mentkowski). • Likely to be adopted by the European Commission.

5. Embedding employability in the first degree • Main focus of ESECT work. • Embed employability in bachelor’s degree by evidence-informed design of: • Curriculum content. • Learning, teaching and assessment approaches. • The learning environment as a whole.

6. USEM • Good learning and the enhancement of employability involve attending to students’: • Understanding of subject matter • Skilful practices • Efficacy beliefs • Metacognition

7. Co-curricular responses • Co-curriculum • All those arrangements made outside the ‘regular’ curriculum for the educational enrichment of the undergraduate years • Equity issues • Employability for all – single parents, those already in work, historians, minority groups.

8. Employability as a curriculum issue • Employability lies less in curriculum content than in curriculum processes. • An entitlement approach to learning, teaching and assessment. • A programme-focused approach to employability, learning, teaching and assessment.

9. Employability Experience Questionnaire • A tool to help in curriculum design and evaluation • Pilot 1 complete; 1417 responses; suggests 5 factors • Academic confidence • (Un)certainty regarding personal capability • Confidence regarding employment • Influence of work-experience on academic studies • Personal autonomy • Pilot 2 to run during February 2005 • Electronic version subsequently to HE Academy website

10. Curriculum responses • The LTSN/GC Learning and Employability series (2004). Further publications under development. • Other Higher Education academy and ESECT resources, tools and networks. • http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/Employability.htm

11. Employability. • Implications for the first degree. • ‘Employment is temporary, employability can be endlessly renewed.’ Examples include: • Mid-level qualifications, incl. foundation degrees. • Taught master’s degrees. • Professional doctorates. • Cross-cutting themes. • Part-time students. • The quality of non-formal learning.

12. Employability: a matter of transfer and transitions? • Transfer of training. • A battle. • Situatedness of practice. • Tacit knowledge. • Making transitions. • Performance (and confidence?) dips. • Applied metacognition?

13. Looking beyond the undergraduate years Part-time study Schooling Taught master’s Undergraduate years Professional doctorate Foundation degrees Work-based training Further Education or Community College Non-formal learning

14. Employability. • Implications for the first degree. • ‘Employment is temporary, employability can be endlessly renewed.’ Examples include: • Mid-level qualifications, incl. Foundation Degrees. • Taught master’s degrees. • Professional doctorates. • Cross-cutting themes. • Part-time students. • The quality of non-formal learning.

15. Mid-level qualifications • Often directly employment-relevant. • Various modes of study. • Valued particularly in continental Europe and the US. • Foundation degrees introduced into England, Wales, Northern Ireland.

16. Foundation degrees • Designed in conjunction with employers to fit specific employment needs. • Strong emphasis on work-based learning, which raises issues regarding mentoring, assessment. • Notable contribution to upskilling in health, social care and education. • Some particularly successful industry/education institution partnerships. • A general, rather than a specific, foundation degree? • What will be the impact of top-up fees?

17. Employability. • Implications for the first degree. • ‘Employment is temporary, employability can be endlessly renewed.’ Examples include: • Mid-level qualifications, incl. foundation degrees. • Taught master’s degrees. • Professional doctorates. • Cross-cutting themes. • Part-time students. • The quality of non-formal learning.

18. Master’s degrees: improving employability • Variety of master’s degrees – conversion, specialist and professional. • Professional master’s typically entail: • Reflections on practice; • Drawing on research evidence; • Drawing on research concepts; • Beginning action research.

19. Master’s degrees: improving employability? • Coherence? • Are goals met? • Boyatzis and colleagues, 1995? • What about USEM? • Studies needed.

20. Employability. • Implications for the first degree. • ‘Employment is temporary, employability can be endlessly renewed.’ Examples include: • Mid-level qualifications, incl. foundation degrees. • Taught master’s degrees. • Professional doctorates. • Cross-cutting themes. • Part-time students. • The quality of non-formal learning.

21. Professional doctorates: improving employability • Growth area, especially in Australia. • Theory-practice-enquiry interplay. • With professional focus. • Mixture of ‘taught’ courses and dissertation/thesis/ project.

22. Professional doctorates: improving employability? • Dilemma: • Too ‘highfaluting’? • Bogged down in local practices? • USEM? • Studies needed.

23. Employability. • Implications for the first degree. • ‘Employment is temporary, employability can be endlessly renewed.’ Examples include: • Mid-level qualifications, incl. foundation degrees. • Taught master’s degrees. • Professional doctorates. • Cross-cutting themes. • Part-time students. • The quality of non-formal learning.

24. Employability and part-time students • Little, B. (2005, forthcoming) Part-time Students and Employability. York: the Higher Education Academy.

25. Employability. • Implications for the first degree. • ‘Employment is temporary, employability can be endlessly renewed.’ Examples include: • Mid-level qualifications, incl. foundation degrees. • Taught master’s degrees. • Professional doctorates. • Cross-cutting themes. • Part-time students. • The quality of non-formal learning.

26. The quality of non-formal learning • Blackwell, A., Bowes, L. Harvey, L. Hesketh, A. and Knight P.T. (2001) Transforming Work Experience in Higher Education, British Educational Research Journal, 26(3), 269-286. • Bailey, T.R., Hughes, K.L. and Moore, D.T. (2004) Working Knowledge: work-based learning and education reform. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

27. Other readings • Boyatzis, R.E. and associates (1995). Innovation in Professional Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. • Knight, P.T. (1997) Masterclass: learning, teaching and curriculum in taught master’s degrees. London: Cassell. • Knight, P.T. and Yorke, M. (2004) Learning, Curriculum and Employability. London: Routledge/Falmer. • Yorke, M. and Knight, P.T. (2004) Embedding Employability into the Curriculum. York: the Learning and Teaching Support Network.

28. More http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/Employability.htm peter.knight@open.ac.uk m.yorke@livjm.ac.uk