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The sample consisted of work-based programs in four professional areas: Engineering, Business Studies, Health Sciences and Social Science. The aim was to gain insight into the work experience component of a range of vocational courses. It was intended that four of the courses would be examined in some detail as case studies and that interviews would be conducted with students, academic staff and employers. In addition, the Work Experience Questionnaire, aimed at measuring the learning experiences of students on placements, was developed and administered to students who had undertaken work placements in the case study courses and in four matching courses. The overall investigation was, therefore, to comprise four case studies and four quantitative only studies.
The documentation of work-based components in each of the four selected professional areas was examined in courses around Australia. Courses in the home state, Victoria, with work-based components which were well established, well documented and well regarded, were selected as case studies. The matching non-case study courses, however, in all but one instance, came from universities outside Victoria.
The final sample is shown below. Three of the courses would only proceed on the understanding that confidentiality be maintained. Consequently, no course is identified.
The courses were:
Course A Electrical Engineering (case study)
Course B Electrical Engineering (quantitative study only)
Course C Accounting (case study)
Course D Accounting (quantitative study only)
Course E Youth Work (case study)
Course F Youth Work (quantitative study only)
Course G Medical Laboratory Science (case study)
Course H Medical Laboratory Science (quantitative study only).
Data for Course H—Medical Laboratory Science, a quantitative study—was seriously incomplete and is not reported.
Course Documentation
Detailed documentation was collected for the work-based placement component of all the courses.
The following documents were requested which:
Interviews
In all eight courses, both case study and non-case study, interviews were conducted with the member of staff with overall responsibility for the work-based component. The intention was to get a clear picture of the aims of the work-based component: how it fitted into the course, how it was organised and funded, and how it was assessed and evaluated.
In all case study courses, these interviews were face to face. In the non-case study courses, two interviews were by telephone. Staff were asked:
These initial interviews were conducted at the beginning of 1995, the year of the study. They were completed by April.
In the four case study courses, interviews were also undertaken with:
two employers taking part in the scheme 2 x 4 = 8 employers two students from each workplace 2 x 2 x 4 = 16 students the work-based supervisors of the students 2 x 2 x 4 = 16 work-based supervisors The academic supervisors of the students 2 x 4 = 8 academic supervisors (one academic staff member was linked to each workplace rather than to each student) the university organisers of the scheme 1 x 4 = 4 university staff
The total interview sample for the case study institutions consisted of:
workplace representatives: employers and work-based supervisors 24 university representatives: scheme organisers and academic supervisors 12 students 16
To ensure interviewees had some experience of the placements, the interviews were grouped in the middle and towards the end of the year. The following central questions were asked of students and academic and work-based supervisors.
What are your experiences of the program and what is its value?
How do you believe you and others in the program benefit?
How do you think the program might be improved?
Analysis of the main issues to emerge from these interviews is presented in Chapter 5.
A phenomenographic analysis was undertaken of the interviews of academic supervisors and scheme organisers. The purpose was to investigate the range of conceptions of work placements held by this group of academic staff. Phenomenography is a qualitative research approach which has been developed over the past 20 years and used extensively to investigate learning, and, to a lesser extent, teaching (Marton 1981; 1988). This approach maps the essential variation in the understanding, or conception, of a particular phenomenon in any given population. From a phenomenographic perspective, conceptions are not seen to reside within individuals but are relationships between individuals and a particular task and context. They are not stable constructs, but dynamic and context dependent.
The purpose of the interview and the analysis is to make explicit the essence of that which is being thought about. When the conceptions have been identified within a context they are then decontextualised and the key dimensions of the thinking about the phenomenon mapped out. It is expected, and found, that these decontextualised categories can be identified in a range of broadly similar contexts (Marton & Booth 1996).
The phenomenographic approach means that although conceptions are eventually decontextualised, they have to be initially identified and described within a specific context in terms of a particular task and from the perspective of an individual engaged in that task. The core interest of this study is how academic staff think about and organise work placement for students and how students consequently learn through that placement. It was, therefore, decided to focus on the conceptions of academic supervisors, but to subsequently link the results of phenomenographic analysis to students’ and employers’ experiences.
Each of the academic staff interviews was audio taped, transcribed verbatim and analysed phenomenographically. The analysis involves the following four steps, described in more detail in Marton (1988).
What was the placement expected to achieve in terms of student learning?
How were these achievements expected to come about?
How would the placement help students to learn?
The selected quotes make up a pool that forms the basis for the next stage of the analysis.
The phenomenographic analysis is described in Chapter 7.
Questionnaires and Data Collection
An adapted version of the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), which has been renamed The Work Experience Questionnaire (WEQ), was devised and piloted to measure student experience of the work placement part of their course. The CEQ has been developed and tested extensively over the last fifteen years (Ramsden & Entwistle 1981; Entwistle & Ramsden 1983; Martin, Ramsden & Bowden 1989; Ramsden 1991). The purpose of the Questionnaire is to provide reliable and valid information about students’ experiences of teaching and learning in their university courses.
The Course Experience Questionnaire is distributed to all new graduates by the Graduate Career Council of Australia, together with the Graduate Destination Survey. The intention of the Survey is to give universities information in order to make judgements on whether their courses are considered by students to be well taught and engaging and how their courses compare in this respect with similar courses in other universities.
The Questionnaire has four scales. Each scale measures a dimension proven through research conducted over the last 20 years to be central to good teaching and learning (Ramsden & Entwistle 198l; Ainley & Long 1995). These are:
- good teaching;
- clear goals and standards in the course;
- assessment;
- workload; and
- generic skills.
In addition, there is one item concerning overall satisfaction with the course. The complete questionnaire consists of 25 items to which graduates respond on a five point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. A full description of the Course Experience Questionnaire and the way it has been used in Australia and elsewhere to gain feedback on students’ experiences of their courses can be found in Ainley & Long (1995).
Interviews conducted during a previous study of work experience (Martin & Bowden 1992) guided the adaptation of the Work Experience Questionnaire. This data revealed that students were most critical of their work placements when they were uncertain about learning objectives and standards in the workplace, when they felt unsupported and undirected in their work and when they felt the tasks they engaged in were trivial and menial. There were clear parallels here with what students say about their experiences in the classroom. In the present study, the Course Experience Questionnaire scales were developed and adapted to fit students’ experience of learning in the workplace.
Items from the Course Experience Questionnaire ‘Clear Goals and Standards’ scale were readily modified. The Questionnaire’s ‘Good Teaching’ scale is made up of a number of dimensions: enthusiasm for the topic, clear explanation and support for learning. It was the latter dimension, ‘support for learning’, which in the 1992 interviews appeared especially significant to students in the workplace; consequently, a six-item scale, called ‘Student Support’, was trialed. Originally two scales were intended to be developed around this ‘Good Teaching’ dimension—one relating to support within the workplace by the employer and workplace supervisor, another relating to support by the university and the academic supervisor. Subsequent data analysis was unable to sustain this division and a single scale was formed.
Given that the aim of work placement is typically claimed to be the development of a number of generic skills such as problem solving, team work, written communication and organisational skills, the Generic Skills Scale of the CEQ was developed. But in addition, nine items relating to other attributes were typically rated as important by employers (see, for example, Business/Higher Education Round Table 1991) and were added to the questionnaire. These items had been trialed by Griffith University in a survey of their own final year students (Griffith University 1994).
A ‘Menial Tasks’ scale was also developed to be included in the instrument. It was clear from earlier work (Martin & Bowden 1992; Candy, Crebert & O’Leary 1994), that whilst the aim of graduate work placement was typically claimed by universities to be the development of professional insight and competence, students often claimed they were expected to undertake a good deal of trivial and menial, as opposed to professional, tasks. Although all students might expect to undertake their share of routine work, too much of this, with little or no engagement in more demanding professional activity, was clearly not conducive to an overall positive learning experience.
A questionnaire of 35 scale items, including one general satisfaction question together with nine additional generic skills items, was originally developed. This was trialed with a group of 40 work placement students. Questions were amended and items dropped or changed and the revised questionnaire, which consisted of 24 scale items, plus nine generic skills items, was given to students in the eight selected courses at the end of their work placement.
The questions and the scales of the questionnaire on which the study is based are given below.
Menial Tasks (Item Numbers 11, 15, 18)
In this placement I’m seen as an extra pair of hands rather than as a developing professional.
I’m used as cheap labour in this placement.
I’m asked to do too many things which involve no thought.
Generic Skills (Item Numbers 2, 5, 8, 9, 21)
The work placement has developed my ability to solve problems.
The work experience has sharpened my analytic skills.
This work placement has helped me to develop my ability to work as a team member.
As a result of this work placement I feel confident about tackling unfamiliar work-based problems.
In this placement I am helped to develop the ability to plan and organise my day to day work.
Support for Learning (Item Numbers 3, 7, 16, 17, 19)
I’m motivated to do my best work in this workplace.
I’m given plenty of feedback on my work.
In this placement I’m given helpful feedback on how I am going.
My academic supervisor is extremely supportive.
My work-based supervisor tries to make the work experience interesting.
Clear Goals (Item Numbers 1, 6, 12)
It has always been easy to know the standard of work expected of me in this work placement.
I usually have a clear idea of what I am doing and where I am going.
It is often hard to discover what is wanted in this placement.
Overall Satisfaction Item (Item Number 24)
Additional Generic Skills Questions
To what extent do you feel that you have developed each of the following attributes suitable to the work-based placement?
a willingness to learn
oral communication skills
flexibility and adaptability
self confidence
ability to be creative
skills to implement change
professional rigour
a desire to continue learning in the future
In the case study courses, open-ended comments were collected in a final section. Students were asked:
Do you have any comments on the value of your placement?
Responses to this question were used to gain further insights into the student perspective and are reported together with interview data in Chapter 6.
The questionnaire was distributed to students at the end of the work placement, usually during a session when students returned to university for end of year formalities. In two cases, questionnaires were sent to students to return at their convenience. In one of these cases (Course H, the Medical Laboratory Science non-case study course), the response rate was less than 30 percent. Attempts to collect the data at the beginning of 1996 failed and it was subsequently agreed by the Project’s Advisory Committee to drop this case from the sample. In all the other cases, responses to the questionnaire were 80 percent or more of the students in the work placement scheme described in this study.