Beyond learning in higher education: an evaluation of the ‘Life Design’ initiative to improve student employability

ABSTRACT

With increasing evidence highlighting the link between psychological factors such as self-esteem, self-efficacy and optimism on employability outcomes, this paper reports an evaluation of a unique student experience initiative called ‘Life Design’ developed to support the professional and personal development of undergraduate students. First year undergraduates engaged in a two-hour workshop involving interactive exercises designed to foster self-reflection, self-efficacy, and career optimism. The impact of this workshop on validated self-report measures of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and optimism, alongside career-related outcomes was explored using a prospective longitudinal design. Analyses revealed a significant immediate and sustained increase in self-esteem following Life Design, but no impact on self-efficacy or career optimism. Certainty of career developing steps increased at a later follow up, but no changes to career prospect confidence or career choice certainty were reported. This paper highlights the benefits and wider challenges of delivering and engaging students in initiatives designed to enhance employability.

KEYWORDS:

• Life Design
• psychosocial evaluation
• life-orientation
• self-esteem
• career-optimism
• student experience

Acknowledgements

The Life Design evaluation project team wish to thank the following for their contribution and support to this research project: The Life Design Team - Lucy Griffiths, Christopher Thomas, Rhiannon Lleision-Jones, and Lewis Pearson; members of faculty from the three Schools involved in the project - the Heads of the Schools, the admin/support staff and the lecturers for allowing us to use their seminar time to administer the questionnaires; and Mr Christopher Sullivan for printing the questionnaires.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Due to the number of t-tests conducted within each set of analyses, all comparisons were Bonferroni corrected to avoid increasing the likelihood of making a Type I error. Therefore, within each of the different sets of analyses, which each contained three comparisons, the α was set at 0.02.

2 Due to the number of t-tests conducted, all comparisons were Bonferroni corrected to avoid increasing the likelihood of making a Type I error. As there were four analyses, the α was set at 0.01.

3 Independent samples t-tests conducted on psychosocial measures. Mann-Whitney U tests conducted on career variables due to violation of normality.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported internally by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.