Active Learning Through Work-Integrated Learning Frames Exploring Student and Academic Experiences

Introduction

Work integrated learning (WIL) is positioned as an active learning strategy that facilitates an authentic experience providing students with industry specific learning opportunities to enhance their post degree employability (Bosio & Origo, 2020; Calway & Murphy, 2007; Rowe & Zegwaard, 2017). While active learning has many contexts and conceptualisations the focus of the present chapter is to interrogate how innovative and impactful WIL experiences can positively contribute to undergraduate student post degree employability.

While Universities continue to strengthen their commitment to work integrated learning scholars contend that these learning and teaching approaches characteristically fail to gain the curriculum space and attention they deserve (Orrell, 2018). Tellingly, the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching (2016) report drew attention to critical concerns regarding graduate employability. Considering current and predicted skills and labour shortages employability is demarcated as a critical concern for the higher education sector that should be addressed as a matter of urgency (Small, McPhail & Shaw, 2021). Indeed, government funding of Australian universities is increasingly connected with employability measures (Bolger, 2019; Bolton, 2019). While challenges and tensions continue to exist in academic discourse, policy, and practice regarding universities role in work readiness the centrality of graduate employability as a quality and success measure continues to rise (Bridgstock & Jackson, 2019) in Australia and abroad (Cacciolatti, Lee & Molinero, 2017).

For the purpose of this chapter work integrated learning is conceptualised as a rich pedagogical space for active learning and the development of graduate employability outcomes. While employment and employability are frequently conflated, employability is here positioned as the process by which universities prepare students to negotiate graduate life and work. In connection and with an active learning framework in mind graduate’s personal aims and goals together with their life and work circumstances are of centrality to any meaning (Bennett, 2018; Bridgstock & Jackson, 2019). The significance of this positioning is further buoyed by the expectations of contemporary students who are often self-sponsoring their university education and are seeking a viable return on their considerable time and financial investment (Billett, 2015).

The salience of work integrated learning frames is further pronounced as the world of work continues to shift at a rapid pace. Global financial and health crises (Hogan, Charles & Kortt, 2021) have contributed to further robust and far reaching discussions about the role of universities. In reference to university business degree curriculum, Jackson et al. (2017) problematise how content focused business degree programs are no longer a sufficient entry point into work. In association research across business school disciplines point to the continued and rising importance of soft skills among graduates (Bhagra & Sharma, 2018; Succi & Canovi, 2020) with WIL learning and teaching frames providing a fertile context for their purposeful development (Jackson & Collings, 2005). Through these pedagogical approach’s students are encouraged to seek out understanding through engaging with real work contexts, enquiry, and questioning, so they can transform their learning experiences into practice knowledge, a fuller discussion of which the chapter shortly returns to.