Career benefits of a placement year

Peter ReddyReader in PsychologyNational Teaching Fellow

Myself

• Former placement student in 1975-6– Social worker in Middlesbrough

• Aston graduate (1977)

• Became a teaching fellow at Aston in 1999

• Took charge of the psychology placement programme and began researching it

Firstly - what do graduate young adults want? Graduate transition – the developmental context

• Levinson (1996) – Early adulthood: 17 to 45

• Early adult transition: 17 to 22 • Entering the adult world: 22 to 28

• Transition between eras can take 3 to 6 years to complete.

• Within the broad eras are periods of development, each characterized by a set of tasks and an attempt to build or modify our life structure.

Developmental tasks

• In the Early Adult Transition the main task is to move out of the pre-adult world and take a first step into the adult world.

• Constructing adulthood – these issues likely to feature– Own life, meaning, direction

• Career – quotidian (9-5) graduate profession– Financial independence

• Salary – Emotional independence

• Life partner• Children, own family

– Own home• Mortgage

Leaving university – a major transition

• Choices and self-creation – chaotic, unstructured & open ended relative to UCAS and university entry– Career choice? – Temporary job? – Straight to work? – Postgraduate course? – Go travelling? – Live back home? – Move in with partner?

• As many losses as when joined university? – Youth– Freedom and protection of student identity– University friends and life

• not forgetting debt

The dream

• A theme throughout every period is the ‘Dream.’

• It has a vision-like quality, it is an imagined possibility generating excitement and vitality. It is a projection of our ideal life and we are always becoming in relation to it.

• The place and nature of the dream is modified and revised throughout life as the imagined self is compared with the world as we live through it.

– (Tennant and Pogson,1995)

Heidegger on being and becoming

• For Heidegger being means having possibilities, we are continually in a process of becoming, we are oriented to the ‘not yet’.

• Development comes through challenging taken-for-granted assumptions, being more reflexive / self aware. – being with others, including reference group members, is

part of becoming a professional, we learn to act and think as ‘they’ do

• Ontological development, unfolding and transforming of self over time, is not in a predetermined or linear sequence

Psychology placement year in 1999

• Small scale, decentralised, 40% of students on placement, usually unpaid

• Was it worth it?– I had felt out of my depth on placement– Some friends had felt exploited

• Immediate problem was assessment

Student views on the value of the placement year

• Focus groups with final year ex-placement students – led to the development of a questionnaire to identify transferable

skills

• Strongly endorsed the value of a placement year

• Raised the issue of should universities explicitly prepare undergraduates for work?

• Barnett (1994) argued that traditional HE concentrated on 'knowing that' but operational competence, 'knowing how', was sought by business and government.

Focus groups – skills developed

• Communication – talking with all different levels of people – you do learn to talk to people a lot better in lots of different ways– talking to...[men in suits]…I found they were just like my dad

• Time management– you've got more time management awareness

• Confidence– more confident…not so scared of different things happening really– We were not necessarily more confident, but we could bluff

confidence better

• Self presentation– conduct yourself in a business way

Focus group themes 2

• Taking responsibility– learn how to be proactive– more resourceful

• Making presentations– a lot of talking in front of people

• Writing skills– Writing reports– sentence construction

• Teamwork– ability to build up relationships within a team

Focus group with final years who had not taken a placement

• Defensive feel in group

• Reported that final years who had taken a placement…

– seem more focussed

– their time management is a lot better

– they seem a lot more confident

– they know what its like to get up at 8.30am (sic)

– (about presentations…) they seemed a lot more professional

– more aware of their own skills

Some problems with the research

• Self-selecting sample

– Placement and non-placement students my differ in other ways, association between placement and benefits may not be causal

• I took an amiable skeptic / incomplete knowledge stance, and made clear my uncertainty about the value of a placement

– but acting as moderator of my own focus groups is not neutral

Academic benefit? Placement and non-placement final year grades over 6 years

424260322223 242340373626N =

Year of graduation

200320022001200019991998

final yea

r gr

ade

80

70

60

50

40

30

placement year or no

No place

Placemen

222221223

183185182

179

136

137

412

413

390

389

366

286

250

Mean Exam Marks by Year and Placement Group

Final2nd

Exa

m M

arks

(M

ean

%)

64

63

62

61

60

59

58

Placement

Yes

No

•Year F1,412=119.66, p<0.001•Placement Group F1,412 =23.01, p<0.001•Interaction F1,412 =15.58, p<0.001

*After removal of outliers

Grade differences between second and final year

225189N =

placement year or not

PlacementNo placement

95%

CI D

iffer

ence

- y

ear

2 / f

inal

yea

r

4

3

2

1

0

-1

Final year grades over 6 years

225189N =

placement year or not

PlacementNo placement

95%

CI f

inal

yea

r gr

ade

65

64

63

62

61

60

59

58

57

Further Analysis

• 2nd year mark is significant covariate (F1,407=290.36) for analysis of placement group on final year marks but the effect of placement group remains significant (F1,407=31.52, p<0.001)

Year 2 Mark

807060504030

Fin

al Y

ear

Mar

k

80

70

60

50

40

30

Placement

No

Yes

Total Population

Supervisor ratings of final year project students

• Final year dissertation supervisors rated their supervisees’ competences at the end of the year

• Ratings were received for 58% of students in supervision.

• Former placement students were rated higher by their supervisors.

• Suggests that students develop competencies on placement that benefit them academically as well as in the work place – underscores Knight’s point that ‘… what makes for employability in

graduates overlaps substantially with what makes them good researchers’

Supervisor Ratings

• Placement students difference score across all measures mean=24.36

• No placement students mean difference score =14.58

• This difference was significant F1,42=5.198, p<0.05

2519N =

PlacementNo placement

Diff

eren

ce S

core

80

60

40

20

0

-20

Measuring the benefits of a psychology placement year: Scholarship – more recent data

Programme Mark differenceYes vs. No

Significance

(ANCOVA)

Partial η2

(ANCOVA)

Effect Size (d)

ANOVA inter-action

Kendall’stau

BSc Human Psychology

63 vs. 60 <.001 .111 0.80 <.001 .237(p<.001)

BEng Electrical & Electronic

59 vs. 55 n.s. .016 0.35 n.s. .209 (p<.005)

BEng/MEng Chemical

59 vs. 54 <.001 .116 0.73 <.01 .142(p<.05)

BSc Computing Science

62 vs. 55 <.001 .063 0.82 <.001 .264 (p<.001)

BSc Managerial &

Admin.Studies

62 vs. 57 <.001 .064 0.71 <.001 .146 (p<.001)

Placement year significance once

2nd year mark covaried

Proportion of variance

explained once 2nd

year mark covaried

How many standard

deviations the groups differ

by

Significance of year of study by

placement interaction

Association between

placement year and degree class

Summary – academic benefits

• Academic benefit shown from taking an optional placement year nearly any way you choose to measure it– In 2013 only students who had taken a placement got firsts

• Effect sizes in psychology compare favourably to other subjects

• Further analyses show that the effects:– (i) are not due just to being a bit older – (ii) holds for both higher and lower achievers – (iii) holds for all ethnicities

• Higher grade alone is associated with improved employability (Purcell, Elias et al 2013)

Subject – career mismatch

• Subjects and degrees do not necessarily have careers attached and careers do not necessarily have their own degrees

• About 20% of psychology graduates will find their way into practice, teaching or research – selection at 22+ not 18+

• Being and becoming is a journey of discovery – we get to find out who we are, this is not necessarily what

we plan and what we want can change. – Need to be open to what we might become, make the dream

wide enough to accommodate possibilities

• 50% of graduate careers are open to graduates of any discipline

Graduate careers

• Specific (naïve?) view – I want to be a psychologist etc

• Broader (practical) view – like Dorothea in Middlemarch, graduates want to do something that…– Is meaningful– Engaging, satisfying– Fulfilling, expresses values and who you are– Makes a difference to people– Affords a satisfactory income and lifestyle – Makes us feel that this has all been worth while

• This may be in your discipline, it may be many other things that we may not have considered or even heard of

Encouraging a wider perspective and a focus on careers

• Encourage and widely publicise engagement and success

– http://www.aston.ac.uk/study/aston-enterprise/enterprise-news/aston-university-graduates-reach-britains-largest-small-business-competition-final/aston-enterprise-competition-success/

• Only 44% of final years nationally make use of their university careers services (Purcell, Elias et al, 2013)

What do we mean by employability?

• The USEM model (Yorke and Knight, 2004)

• U Understanding, of disciplinary material and, how the world works• S Skilful practices in context, whether discipline based or more generic• E Efficacy beliefs, including a range of personal attributes and qualities• M Metacognition, including the capacity for reflection and self-regulation

• Yorke (2006) employability - the achievements of the graduate and potential to obtain a ‘graduate job’.

– ‘… skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful … benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy’

Yorke (2004)

….defining employability

• Harvey (2004) - on-going developmental process, about developing critical, empowered learners.

• Lowden, Hall, Elliot and Lewin (2011) distinguish– narrow focus on skills and attributes– broader approach (including skills and attributes) based on

values, intellectual rigor and engagement

What competencies are employers looking for? Graduates Work report (Harvey, 1997)

• Cognitive skills/brain power– e.g. analysis, judgement, attention to detail.

• Generic:– e.g. planning and organising, communication, questioning, listening,

teamwork, interpersonal and organisational sensitivity, • Personal capabilities

– e.g creativity, decisiveness, initiative, adaptability/flexibility, achievement orientation, tolerance for stress, leadership.

• Technical ability– e.g. knowledge and application.

• Business/organisational awareness– e.g. organisational understanding, commercial awareness, financial

awareness• Practical and professional expertise

– e.g. reflective practice, process operation, image presentation.

What does this mean for students?

• Through reflection and self awareness they need to know their own strengths, interests and competencies

• They will need to know how to handle competency based interviews and demonstrate their competencies at assessment centres

• Competencies will also relate to continuing professional development (CPD) and promotion as well as recruitment

Competencies you are developing on your degree

• Research• Analysis• Handling data and

information• Problem solving and

reasoning• Interpersonal insight• Team work• Communication• Learning orientation

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/subjects/psychology/Employability_Guide.pdf

Does this mean that competencies are as important as subject studied and degree grade?

• Yes (or more important!)

– Degree class alone is not a reliable job performance predictor (IRS, 2003; Barber et al 2005).

– Degree grades are broad categories so grade is not distinctive

– Employers seek graduates with the general competencies necessary for competitive advantage

• not organisational-specific competencies that can be acquired with development and training (IRS, 2003).

Independent Placement Research

More than ½“More than half of recruiters warn that graduates who have had noprevious work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisations’ graduate programmes.”

(Graduate Market in 2012 report from High Fliers)

Elias and Purcell’s classification of graduate jobs*:

• Traditional graduate - degree is standard entry qualification e.g. solicitors, doctors, scientists, lecturers, teachers)

• Modern graduate – newer occupations, typically filled by graduates e.g. senior managers in large organisations, IT professions

• New graduate often require a degree, e.g. occupational therapists, quantity surveyors, medical radiographers, public relations, accountants

• Niche graduate - Most do not require a degree, but many provide opportunities for degree-level skills e.g. quality control engineers, hotel managers, nurses.

• Non-graduate occupations - all the rest – *More recent distinction made between graduate jobs (‘experts’,

‘communicators’ and ‘orchestrators), and non-graduate jobs.

Graduate Jobs

For more recent work from Warwick Institute for Employment Research see: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/futuretrack/

“Quality” of employment: DLHE survey 6 months

Elias and Purcell Job Category

1 2 3 4 5Placement 20% 11% 14% 15% 39%No placement 9% 9% 15% 23% 45%

Graduate jobs

Progression over time into graduate careers

• Elias and Purcell (2004) show that with both their 1992 and 1995 cohorts, around 50% of graduates entered non-graduate jobs on graduation, but the proportion remaining in non-graduate jobs fell rapidly and consistently and 79 months later was down to 15%.

• The DLHE survey, which records graduate employment on a census date six months after graduation, may be important for university league tables, but not in the longer term

A non-graduate job at this stage should not be regarded as a failure.

• Some graduates will not be ready to commit to a full-on career immediately

– some will be working to finance travelling, some will want to establish their comfort with and commitment to patient contact as a tentative first step towards a clinical career.

• E.g. Able 2011 graduate greatly valued her work as a health care assistant six weeks after graduating:

Job type: Alumni survey 1.5 to 6 years after graduation

Elias and Purcell Job Category1 2 3 4 5

Placement 74% 5% 11% 11% 11%No placement 54% 6% 8% 2% 29%

χ2=8.54, p<.005 if look at just graduate (1-4) vs. non graduate (5) jobsToo few observations in categories 2,3 and 4

What does this mean for the UK psychology Bachelor’s degree?

• Being in the best position to get a job requires you to be prepared for

– job search and writing CVs and application letters

– reflection on your interests, competencies, abilities, ambitions and developing adult and professional identity.

• UCAS does not prepare you for the chaos of the job market

• Think beyond your grades

The lure of the psychology professions, especially clinical psychology

• Danger of able graduates spending several years chasing limited opportunities – wasted effort and a sense of failure while other rewarding

careers pass by – a plan B is essential

• Staff all want you to be ambitious and to aim for what they want, and so help you to prepare for clinical careers.

• But risks adding to the allure of clinical psychology and reinforcing that this is somehow the ‘best’ and highest status career to aim for, regardless of personal suitability, job satisfaction and reward.

Clinical psychology

• Dominates career aspirations,

• Aspirational for able students

• Placement year seen as a unique short-cut for graduate assistant posts

• What we mean by psychology

• Staff want all to be ambitious and to have opportunities

• Be ambitious but have a plan B

“I think we have been really pushed into (it)… a careers talk … that’s when it started … very, very early on in my degree.

…when you do your placement, and you see people who are in that career … and they’re telling you, you know, we’ve done it, you can do it, and it’s having those people telling you that, that really pushes you...

It definitely… was put on a pedestal as… this is one of the big jobs you can do… …one of those jobs that it’s so rewarding. …it can grow into you that clinical is the best of the best and if you achieve that you really have made it.

It’s a cultural experience! The university as a cultural product

• Cannot value university education only in economic terms– Is art as valuable as medicine or accountancy?

• Universities exist to enrich cultures and societies, not just to train people to be economically useful.

• Should university education be valued as a cultural product –like dance, theatre, television, film, biography, history, museums, novels, parks?– Can we really be rich without these things?

• Should you approach university in the same way you approach these things?– Seeking stimulation, pleasure, enlightenment, meaning?

What is higher education about?Beyond information transmission

• Knowledge………………• Skills / competencies……….• But also …. being and becoming

• ‘..inadequacy of a focus on epistemology (knowing) in which ontology (being and becoming ) is overlooked.’

• education is a process of becoming. and involves … the integration of knowing, acting, and being…– Dall’Alba (2009)

Summary

• Scope for research at several levels, not just nationally– Subject / subject grouping– University– Occupation– Local and regional area

• Need for a broader context of being and becoming and adult development

• Should we offer curriculum in this area?