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A career research module promotes career exploration and understanding of the labour market and transferable skills

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posted on 2024-04-19, 05:31 authored by Brianna JulienBrianna Julien, Louise LexisLouise Lexis, Jarrod ChurchJarrod Church
Students, the public, and government expect university graduates to find meaningful employment and contribute to the economic and social prosperity of society. Universities have a responsibility to support students to develop their career management skills. An assessed career research module was embedded into a second-year human physiology subject taken by students in health-science related undergraduate STEM degrees. Students conducted research on the logistics of entering their preferred career, the Australian labour market for this career, and the transferable skills and personal attributes required. They communicated their learnings in a video and completed reflection activities comprised of Likert-scale and open-ended questions. The aims of this study were to determine students’: 1) ability to research the logistics of entering their preferred career and the labour market; 2) perceptions of the most important skills and attributes for their preferred career, and development of these; 3) perceptions of module activities and career planning, and perceived career management skills. To address the aims of the study, 265 student videos and reflection activities were analysed. Results indicate that the module supported students in gaining career management skills that were a focus of the curriculum. Most students identified their current university course as the main way they were developing important skills and attributes, with their course, volunteering and further study the main ways they planned to continue skill and attribute development. In conclusion, a career research module is an effective career development tool for students in a range of undergraduate courses.

History

Publication Date

2023-01-01

Journal

Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability

Volume

14

Issue

1

Pagination

22p. (p. 31-52)

Publisher

Deakin University

ISSN

1838-3815

Rights Statement

© The Authors 2023. Copyright in the article is vested in the author(s) with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License (CC BY-NC 4.0), that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal, but not use the material for commercial purposes.