Real World Experiences?

Figures & data

Table 1 Design for survey of past and present students on the effects of practitioner engagement in their education.

Target group	Themes addressed in specific questions
Current students	Benefits of practitioner input Special knowledge or skills elements that cannot be derived from other sources What is unhelpful about practitioner input? Nature of opportunities for feedback
Past students	Practitioner inputs to teaching and learning that are remembered and valued now Longer-term benefits of input from regional practitioners Any changes to the input from regional practitioners that in hindsight would have been useful

Table 2 Preliminary exploration of themes (* indicates differences that may be considered significantly different, even in this small data set, if one accepts a p<0.01 in Chi-square comparisons of present and past student response frequencies).

Theme	Current students (48 responses)	Past students (29 responses)
The value of a ‘real life’ view*	33 (66.7%)	2 (6.9%)
Applying theoretical knowledge	6 (12.5%)	4 (13.8%)
Acquisition of specialist environmental consultancy skills*	8 (16.7%)	10 (34.5%)
Transferable skill development including inter-personal skill development	8 (16.7%)	3 (10.3%)
Practical skill development*	14 (29.2%)	4 (13.7%)
Transferred experience	12 (25%)	7 (24.1%)
Personal commercial capital	13 (27.1%)	8 (27.6%)
Insights into professional practice*	9 (18.8%)	11 (37.9%)
Students as practitioners	----	8 (27.6%)