Employability: Bridging the gap between education and employment

As a follow-up project (følgeforsknings projekt) to the Erasmus+ project, InnovatiVET, this project’s goal is to investigate employability by means of  two key areas, (1) Work-Based learning (WBL) and (2) Reflective Practice-Based Learning (RPL).

1.Work-Based Learning

Based on cases from Finland and Denmark, we study teacher and learner strategies in collaborative problem solving (CPS).  CPS has been a highlighted issue in education, reflected in the European Commission’s strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (known as ‘ET 2020’[1]).

In specific, the study aims at exploring how teachers and learners determine the right problem to solve and how to solve it. Inspired by a design thinking process (e.g. Brown, 2008; Design Council, 2019; IDEO, 2012), the focus is on emphasizing with customer needs, defining a problem and ideating to solve the problem.

Hence, the notion of meaningful learning is studied from the perspective of how teachers and learners co-create a learning processes that aim at supporting better understanding of the needs of the customer and strategies for solving their problems.

The project draws upon existing state-of-the-art research in education, such as Hesse et al.’s framework for teachable collaborative problem solving skills ( 2015), Tynjälä et al.’s model of integrative pedagogy (2016) and work-based learning (e.g. Kis, 2016; Lemanski & Overton, 2016; Siebert, Mills, & Tuff, 2009)

The WBL study aims to answer the following (Research Questions):

• How do teachers script engaging learning processes that support development of learner autonomy and agency?
• What constitutes an industry-relevant learning process?
• Can student work readiness be improved by supporting learner autonomy and agency?

2. Reflective Practice-Based Learning

A consistent comment from contacts at companies who have interns, is that a greater confidence in students’ own professional abilities is desirable and would aid interns in greater co-participation. Furthermore, students express a confusion in regard to their professional goals, expressed as a lack of courage to participate professionally in a workplace setting. According to newer literature, agency in learners is believed to generate self-driven learning, thus creating a higher awareness of own qualifications, making students more career ready, as well as generating awareness of soft and hard skills, and as consequence, increasing employability.

The programme in Design and Business with a specialization of marketing and branding at Business Academy SouthWest in Denmark is indicative of this, and seeks to cater to the industry’s growing need for creative problem solving and design thinking in the approach to solving complex business issues.

Feedback from internship companies suggests that due to the heterogeneous nature of the student body, and the crossfield nature of the program, a need for pedagogical intervention to facilitate development of agency in learners and support formulation of personal learning goals in relation to the diverse needs of the labour market exists.

In this study, we explore the mentioned didactic intervention aimed at development of agency, co-participation, and engagement in learning affordances at the workplace.

The RPL study seeks to deepen understanding of the role of students’ participation in improving learning transfer from education to the workplace.

• Research question: How to increase employability of students at EASV by promoting self-agency in learning, by applying reflective practice based learning involving industry at an early stage of the development of career readiness?
• Proposition: RPL is a way to successfully ensure individual learning in a heterogenous, creative group of students, and facilitating a setting where this kind of reflective practice is possible will aid the students in developing agency to design their own learning goals and careers.

[1] Council conclusions of 12 May 2009 on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (‘ET 2020’) – details available at http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/strategic-framework_en

References

Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 84–92.

Design Council. (2019). The Design Process: What is the Double Diamond? Retrieved August 14, 2019, from https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/design-process-what-double-diamond

Hesse, F., Care, E., Buder, J., Sassenberg, K., & Griffin, P. (2015). A Framework for Teachable Collaborative Problem Solving Skills. In P. Griffin & E. Care (Eds.), Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills: Educational Assessment in an Information Age (pp. 37–56). Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media.

IDEO. (2012). Design Thinking for Educators (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://designthinkingforeducators.com/

Kis, V. (2016). Work, train, win: work-based learning design and management for productivity. OECD Education Working Papers, 30pp.

Lemanski, T., & Overton, T. (2016). The development of mapping tool for work-based learning activities. Higher Education, Skills and Work – Based Learning, 6(3), 277–287.

Siebert, S., Mills, V., & Tuff, C. (2009). Pedagogy of work-based learning: the role of the learning group. Journal of Workplace Learning, 21(6), 443–454.

Tynjälä, P., Virtanen, A., Klemola, U., Kostiainen, E., & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2016). Developing social competence and other generic skills in teacher education: applying the model of integrative pedagogy. European Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 368–387.

• Research project will contribute to new knowledge, adding value to EASV and other Business Academies’ educational programs. By investigating the link between work-readiness and teacher scripting for learning processes, the contribution will be giving teachers tools on how to improve (classroom) teaching for generating industrial currency.
• As the project is ultimately geared towards providing more meaningful learning, the insight gained here will reflect the newest knowledge within education on how to provide better WBL and RPL.
• Stakeholders in the business environment, will (in)directly gain value in receiving students with better industrial currency.

Theoretical background WBL:

• Collaborative and cooperative learning: referring to educational methods and environments where a group of learners engage in a common task and where each individual depends on and is accountable to each other. In addition, cooperative learning refers to a situation where individuals need to take responsibility for a specific section and then coordinate their respective parts together.
• Situated learning: learning as participation in the social world, suggesting learning as an integral and inseparable aspect of social practice. Emphasis on the context where learning takes place and the learning affordances present in a specific context.
• Learner agency: Learners need to develop the capacity to shape and manage their learning without over-reliance on the direction and control of others. In short, learner agency can be described as individual’s capacity to act. However, it is widely accepted that it is socioculturally, contextually and interpersonally mediated.

Theoretical background RPL:

• According to the literature, the agency and co-participation capabilities of students will be enhanced, something the collected data from internship interviews show as a consistent demand from companies in the area. Employability seeks to be enhanced, thus leading to a higher percentage of students to be employed after graduation and limiting the of time unemployed post-graduation. Hopefully, this small-scale experiment on one education will benefit the students thus can be scaled to all educations as a ‘tried and tested’ methodology.

1.WBL

By an action research approach, we observe and interview teachers and learners on their process of meaning making in finding their strategies. The data will be collected from two-four groups of learners and their teachers in Finland and in Denmark. With table analysis, we aim to identify general and contextual factors supporting learner autonomy and agentic learning.

A primarily qualitative study, where observations are drawn from project participants, as well as continuous questions asked to the learners during the workshops and semi-structured interviews with teachers.

Each workshop contains students and at least 1 teacher from an educational organization, a case company, and 2 project participants (either from EASV or University of Turku).

2.RPL

• Questionnaire with multiple choice answers regarding student backgrounds etc as well as open questions regarding students’ view of their own professional profile. This in order to carry out a base line study, as well as a positioning of student perception relating to their varying backgrounds.
• 2-3 consecutive experiments in the educational modules Concept Development I and II, respectively placed in the end of the Autumn 2020 semester and the beginning of the Spring 2021 semester. Here we observing a development in students’ perceptions of their professional profile in the application of RPL activities. Data will be gathered through observation, possibly recording, and students’ deliverables in the form of e.g. filled in BMC-me forms and video presentations. Data will be compared with the initial baseline positioning.

Expected results:

• Learners who experience co-creation and involvement in planning a learning process are likely to reach deep learning and to be motivated in their learning.
• Teachers who engage in solving working-life oriented problems with their students are likely to develop better understanding of expectations of the labour market and to develop collaboration between stakeholders outside the educational institution.
• In order to gain cultural and social capital to enter the labour market after graduation, students need to engage in learning in professional contexts.
• Learning as participation in solving problems arisen from the social world may help students to transfer these qualities to new contexts later on.

The results from the workshops, conference participations and paper, as well as the peer-reviewed article should aid us in the following:

• Better understand learning as a social participation,
• How to script specific learning processes related to work-based learning
• Better link industrial currency to a teacher’s curriculum in order ultimately to…
• understand and better design meaningful learning experiences