Employability for generation TEF students; a study at the University of Wolverhampton. PEDRIO 2017 Martin Khechara, Sara Smith & Roy Broad

Transcription

1 Employability for generation TEF students; a study at the University of Wolverhampton PEDRIO 2017 Martin Khechara, Sara Smith & Roy Broad

2 Background University of Wolverhampton (UOW) global outlook: 23,000 students from nearly 200 countries, 2,500 staff and 26 TNE partners 80% of our students live within 20 miles of their campus Many are the first in their family to attend HEA posses a strong work ethic and desire to succeed

3 Employability University-wide responsibility Institutions are encouraged to embed Strategic Initiative Projects, 2016 employability initiatives throughout their curriculum UOW ranked University 2 nd of in Wolverhampton England with 96% employability (DLHE, 2015). How can we maintain/achieve further improvements within the TEF environment Cross-faculty initiative as part of the Vice-Chancellor s To investigate the employability initiatives at the

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5 96% 99% Employability DLHE 2015?

6 Research Questions 1. To what extent do students currently engage with the range of employability initiatives offered by the UoW? 2. What do current students understand by the term employability and to what extent does this direct their approach to engaging with the current initiatives? 3. Have the current employability initiatives influenced career choice, aspirations and/or progression within their career for our graduates and alumni

7 Research methods The project utilised a mixed methods approach Data was gathered in 2 stages: On- line Questionnaire Sent to approx. 53,000 people including current students and alumni for the last 5 years Allowed quantitative measurement of perceptions of services and interaction Face to face interviews 2 sorting tasks - top 5 terms and a Q-sort of perceptions from the questionnaire think out loud cognitive interviewing approach used Structured interview questions

8 Findings Electronic questionnaire A positive correlation with perceived usefulness and age No correlation with ethnicity or gender The careers advice services and The Workplace were the most used service Analysis of free text revealed that: Respondents thought services not appropriate for their needs and support being poor or not relevant Unsure how to access the services Those that did use them used for career support Experience identified as the single most important factor to be employable Only alumni identified adaptability or flexibility as being important

9 Findings Interviews and sorting tasks Ranking task revealed that: Experience, Qualifications and problem solving skills were considered most important factors [experience] that s all part of the catch 22, you need experience to get the job, but you need the job to get the experience. Supports findings from questionnaire Q sorting task revealed: Inconclusive! Sample size to small to show related perceptions directly May indicate very different opinions between participants Comparative thematic analysis suggested that; There are themes that relate to perceptions of the relevance of services, how people are told about them and how they can be accessed

10 Card sorting tasks used in the interviews. Left shows the ranking task of important factors for employability and below shows the Q-sort used to measure similarities in opinions. Both used terms or comments from the questionnaire

11 Findings Working under pressure Confidence Self-awareness Leadership Qualifications Time keeping Team work Determination Organisation Knowledge Problem solving Communication skills Enthusiasm Social skills Willinness to learn Imagination/creativity Experience Total factor score

12 Thematic analysis of interview transcripts suggested 3 primary themes or codes surrounded the perceptions of the employability services developed from related sub - themes

13 Findings Signposting Relevance Accessibility my the field work is very place specialist is right I by got MD a lot more entrance help about and CV s the doors by speaking are to barristers always closed direct and because it seems how quite they the shut wanted confusion off. It CV s never came were really with very the felt like I different workplace could to go the and in employability there careers being service separate, not knowing which one to go for what the online stuff is quite I feel that difficult because to find of my age group being part of a digital age we ve grown up with the whole idea of using computer and technology

14 Conclusions & further work The main conclusions so far are: Students do use the services provided and are most aware of those with a physical presence. The need for work experience was the primary driver for using the initiatives More consistent signposting of the role and functions of the services and the values of skills learnt during their studies are required along with a review of how the services are accessed physically and digitally Further work should be undertaken to address the final research question of how our services influence career choice and progression

15 Acknowledgements: The project team: Sara Smith Roy Broad Richard Hawkins Nazira Karodia Our student research assistants: Zoe Mason FoSS Manuel Silverio FoSE Jonson Chukwuemeka FoSE Alexander Goodwin - FoSS

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