Level 1 Student Perceptions about Employability, Career Planning and Careers Guidance

Abstract

At the start of the 2003–2004 academic year, students entering the Chester Geography Department completed a questionnaire which explored their attitudes towards the strength and nature of the links between employability and participation in Higher Education, the timing of personal career planning and the purpose, value and chronology of careers guidance. Themes raised from responses to this survey were then examined in more detail via semi-structured interviews with a smaller sample of students. This short paper summarises the results of this research. Although the findings focus on a specific cohort of students, many of the results are likely to be common to other HE institutions and therefore have implications for GEES tutors devising strategies for working on employability and career planning themes with their students.

Introduction

For a number of years, academic tutors and careers advisors have worked collaboratively to incorporate careers guidance and personal development planning into the three programmes offered by the University College Chester Geography Department (Single and Combined Honours Geography and International Development Studies). Whilst acknowledging the value of explicit careers and employability modules (e.g. Chalkley and Burns, 2001; Hawksworth and Kneale, 2001), the alternative approach taken at Chester has been to incorporate these themes within existing taught modules at all levels (for an early discussion of this work see Ribchester and Done, 2001). Student feedback suggests that this approach has been effective at regularly reinforcing key messages and encouraging student action throughout the three years of a degree programme, although it remains difficult to quantify precisely its impact on career and postgraduate course destinations.

Whilst reflecting on the careers and personal development activities that have been pursued, tutors have been increasingly aware that they are based on certain assumptions about ‘where students are at’, and therefore what they are likely to need and would benefit from. It is recognised that these assumptions may not be wholly accurate and that misjudgements about student requirements have the potential to undermine the effectiveness of these activities. Therefore, it was decided to explore student perceptions about employability, career planning and careers guidance, right at the start of their studies. On the first day of induction (September 2003), all students entering the Geography Department at Level 1 (n = 75) completed a questionnaire focused on these topics. Then, between December 2003 and April 2004, semi-structured interviews were completed with ten of the students who had completed the original survey, which allowed key issues emerging from the questionnaire findings to be examined in more depth.

The discussion below summarises the main results, divided into three themes. These results provide important contextual information for tutors working on careers-related issues in the Geography Department at Chester and, if similar findings are evident at other HE institutions, they have wider implications for GEES tutors who are reflecting on the best ways of exploring employability, careers and personal development themes with their students.

Theme 1: Employability and higher education

Almost every student answering the questionnaire at least ’agreed’ that ‘improving career opportunities was an important factor in deciding to enter Higher Education’. The semi-structured interviews revealed that enhanced employability was very commonly at, or near to, the top of the overall list of student priorities. However, when examined in greater detail, some interesting discrepancies become apparent. For example, the interview discussions indicated that an institution’s graduate employability record was not an important search criterion when applying for entry into HE. More generally, there was limited awareness of high profile employability opportunities within the curriculum (for example,Work Based Learning modules in Chester’s case). Perhaps more significantly, the responses indicated high levels of uncertainty about how precisely HE serves to bolster employability prospects. For example, around a fifth of the questionnaire respondents commented generally on the development of more skills and knowledge, another 16% made a vague reference to better qualifications, but only 7% of students were able to identify specific characteristics of their degree programme and how this linked to employability.

Although drawing out the links between future HE experiences and, in many cases, not well-developed aspirations for the future is not necessarily a straight-forward task on the first day of induction, the uncertain responses to questions about this topic have important implications. For example, firstly they suggest the value of maximising opportunities for reflective activities (Harrison et al., 2003) in the curriculum, to enable students to monitor their own progression and development; a self-aware student will generally be one who can grapple with the challenges of career planning most effectively. Secondly, the current heavy emphasis on learning outcomes at programme and module level, although not without its critics (e.g. Hussey and Smith, 2002), would seem appropriate as a mechanism to help students ‘break down’ their experiences into the component parts of knowledge and skills and to potentially highlight learning achievements.

Theme 2: Planning ahead

The responses to a number of questions revealed some interesting indications about attitudes towards the timing of career planning and hence likely interest in employability-related activities. For example, only a little over half of the students (55%) intended to begin looking for post-HE career opportunities before completing their studies and only 19%‘strongly agreed’ that this was their intention. Furthermore, a quarter of students clearly indicated that career searching would be delayed until after the end of Level 3. These figures suggest that there is a sizeable cohort of students to be won over to the value of planning ahead and that there are long-term origins to the oftenrecognised problem of ‘leaving things too late’. Encouraging the process of personal development planning from an early point in a degree programme, and linking this clearly to employability, has the potential to offset this danger and counter a seemingly strong inclination to delay. Indeed encouragingly, though perhaps a little contradictorily, there appears to be a general consensus about the benefits of ‘talks and activities about careers and employability’ and about the value of these from an early stage in a degree programme. The results indicate a particular preference for the inclusion of such activities within normal timetabled teaching sessions (85% at least ‘agreed’ with this). Within a context of growing, and sometimes competing, pressures on student time, this seems to be an increasingly appropriate strategy for tutors and curriculum planners to adopt.

Theme 3: Current plans

The new entrants were asked to express their level of interest in three possible destinations after completing their studies: entering full-time employment, starting a postgraduate course or taking ‘time out’ to do other things (such as travel). The percentage of students expressing an interest in each category was 61%, 41% and 34% respectively. These simple statistics are helpful in that they give an indication of the potential ’market’ for different types of information and activities as well as how student interest in different careers-related activities may vary (for example, how difficult will it be to persuade a student in semester 1 of level 1 about the value of career planning if they are already thinking about taking time out after their studies).

The 75 students identified 23 different occupational areas as possible post-HE employment destinations. These results partly reflect the potential that a Geography degree offers for employment in a wide range of sectors, but are also due to the fact that about half of the respondents were Combined Honours students. Indeed, it was possible to identify quite a close relationship between career aspirations and the ‘second’ subject area in a number of cases. However, the aggregate figures mask a dominant focus on just two occupational areas. Sixteen per cent of students expressed an interest in some of form of development work, usually abroad, and it is easy to attribute this to the cohort of students on the new International Development Studies programme. Most strikingly, over half of the students (56%) expressed an interest in working in education (essentially teaching for the great majority). This was a surprisingly high figure and suggests limited ‘imagination’ (and perhaps confidence) as to what a Geography degree offers to a successful graduate. Very clearly it is incumbent on both tutors and careers advisers to stress the diversity of potential opportunities available to our students.

Finally, from the questionnaire responses, it was possible to categorise the students into three groups: those currently with a clear awareness of their aspirations after completing HE (41%); others who were uncertain about their specific plans but identified general ideas and possibilities (39%); and a smaller group who currently had no ideas or plans for the future (20%). Again, these figures are useful, so, for example, employability activities will need to be sensitive to the two-fifths of students who believe that their post-HE goals are already set.

A range of factors were analysed to see how they affected membership of each of the three categories (e.g. gender, age, taken a gap year or not, perceptions of previous careers guidance). Only degree programme proved to be statistically significant (χ² = 0.05), with an above-expected number of Single Honours Geography students in the third category (no current ideas or plans). It is interesting to speculate on how student membership of the three categories changes during the three years of a degree programme and how the initial 2:2:1 balance shifts. Therefore, the possibility of a ’tracking’ project is being explored, which will also aim to uncover the critical experiences that shape a student’s aspirations during their studies.

Conclusion

The authors believe that this study of student perceptions has been a useful exercise and provides an empirical context for our ongoing attempts to encourage personal career planning and a reflective approach to learning. It has served to highlight the importance of including these topics in the curriculum but has also emphasised the particular challenges that need to be confronted if work of this nature is to be effective with students. The results show, firstly, that students do perceive there to be a close relationship between being successful in HE and greater employment opportunities. Secondly, they also show that awareness of the nature of these employment opportunities - and precisely how HE facilitates access to them - appears restricted. These findings demonstrate that these two issues should be a key focus for careers and employability activities, which should ideally begin at an early point in a degree programme in order to discourage the tendency to put off important decision-making processes.