Education Commons^™

The Contribution Of Work-Integrated Learning To Undergraduate Employability Skill Outcomes, Denise Jackson

Denise Jackson

WIL has attracted considerable attention as an instrument for enhancing professional practice and developing work-readiness in new graduates. It is widely considered as a point of difference in developing graduate employability by enhancing skill outcomes, such as team-work, communication, self-management and problem solving, employment prospects and student understanding of the world-of-work. This paper investigates the role of WIL in improving undergraduate employability skills; gauging its impact on a range of skills; and identifying variations in outcomes for certain demographic, study background and placement characteristics using survey data from 131 WIL students in an Australian university. Results indicate a significant improvement …

Testing A Model Of Undergraduate Competence In Employability Skills And Its Implications For Stakeholders, Denise Jackson

Denise Jackson

Despite the development of employability skills being firmly entrenched in higher education’s strategic agenda worldwide; recent graduates’ standards in certain skills are not meeting industry expectations. This paper presents and tests a model of undergraduate competence in employability skills. It highlights those factors which impact on competence in employability skills and identify ways in which stakeholders can adjust curricula and pedagogy to enhance graduate skill outcomes. Data was gathered from an online survey of 1008 business undergraduates who self-rated their competence against a framework of employability skills typically considered essential in graduates. The data was analysed using multiple regression techniques. …

Self-Assessment Of Employability Skill Outcomes Among Undergraduates And Alignment With Academic Ratings, Denise Jackson

Denise Jackson

Despite acknowledgement of the benefits of self-assessment in higher education, disparity between student and academic assessments, with associated trends in over- and underrating, plagues its meaningful use, particularly as a tool for formal assessment. This study examines self-assessment of capabilities in certain employability skills in more than 1000 Australian business undergraduates. It evaluates the extent to which student self-assessments differ from academics, in what ways and the influence of certain individual and background characteristics - such as stage of degree, gender and academic ability - on rating accuracy. Explanations for documented disparities are presented, in addition to implications and strategies …

Business Graduate Employability – Where Are We Going Wrong?, Denise Jackson

Denise Jackson

Persistent gaps in certain non-technical skills in business graduates continue to impact on organisational performance and global competitiveness. Despite business school’s best efforts in developing non-technical skills, widely acknowledged as fundamental to graduate employability, there has been considerably less attention to measuring skill outcomes and even less on their subsequent transfer to the workplace. It appears stakeholders are assuming transfer occurs automatically in graduates, neglecting the influence of learning program, learner and workplace characteristics on this complex process and its potential impact on graduate employability.

This paper unpacks the concept of transfer and proposes a model of graduate employability which …