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ADCET Podcast: Enabling inclusive employability - designing work-integrated learning
This ADCET podcast is the audio version of our webinar: Enabling inclusive employability - designing work-integrated learning that supports students in uncovering who they are, and who they want to become.
This ADCET webinar presentation by Emily Jones (PhD candidate at the University of Wollongong), provided an overview of her doctoral research project that explores utilising Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to design work-integrated learning (WIL).
The study seeks to understand how the design of WIL experiences enables or inhibits higher education (HE) students’ perceptions of employability. The presentation included an overview of the research aims, the different stages of the research and the concept of utilising UDL for WIL.
This webinar was aimed at work-integrated learning practitioners, curriculum designers, educators in higher education and UDL practitioners.
PRESENTER: Hello everyone and welcome to this ADCET podcast. This episode is an audio recap of a recent ADCET webinar titled Enabling inclusive employability - designing work-integrated learning that supports students in uncovering who they are, and who they want to become. Presented by Emily Jones, a PhD candidate at the University of Wollongong this webinar provided an overview of Emily’s doctoral research project that explores utilizing UDL principles to design work integrated learning. The study seeks to understand how the design of WIL experiences enables or inhibits higher education (HE) students’ perceptions of employability. We hope you find this presentation interesting and engaging and you can find additional information supporting this podcast on the ADCET website. Now over to you Emily.
EMILY: Hi everyone, my name is Emily Jones. I use she/her pronouns and I am a white woman with short dark hair. I'm wearing silver glasses and I'm wearing a dark‑coloured cardigan and behind me is a blurred white background. Thank you very much for having me. I'm so pleased to be here to speak about my research. I'm a candidate in the PhD integrated program at the University of Wollongong and the research that I'm undertaking is in inclusive work‑integrated learning. You might tell by the accent that I am not from Australia. I'm Canadian. I am based in Toronto, Canada, and I currently work as the director of student success and career navigation at Toronto Metropolitan University. As I get started, I want to acknowledge the land that I join you from today which is the Dish with One Spoon Treaty Territory. The Dish with One Spoon is a treaty between the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee that bound them to protect the territory and the land and I acknowledge and am grateful to the nations whose land I live and work.
So whilst I'm based here in Toronto I have some deep ties to Australia. I am married to an Adelaidian. I spent seven years living and working in Sydney across the higher education and community sectors and I moved back home to Canada in 2017 and, of course, I find myself still connected to Australia through my PhD work at the University of Wollongong.
So as I said I'm here to present the plan for my research titled Enabling Inclusive Employability and the focus of my research is on the design of work‑integrated learning that supports students in uncovering who they are and who they want to become. I'm still at the very early stages of my research, having just recently obtained ethics approval from the University of Wollongong, and I anticipate to begin collecting data early next year.
There's a few reasons why I chose this topic. The first is that in my day‑to‑day work I support a team who oversees a number of cooperative education programs where students alternate study terms and work terms and the university at which I work has a very diverse student body with more than half of our 46,000 students identifying with one or more equity groups and a significant proportion of our students also identify as being first in their family to attend university. So what I've observed over the years working at Toronto Metropolitan University is we prepare students to engage in the world of work in a way that reflects limited and very limiting beliefs about young professionals in different fields. I often question whether our programs service conveyor belts where we're putting these beautifully diverse students on one end and at the other end they're all shaped in the same singular belief of what a young professional should be.
I was curious to explore whether work‑integrated learning could be designed in a way that recognises multiple ways of knowing, doing and being professional in a way that's inclusive of all students. So the overall aims of my research, the study will seek to explore students' experiences of inclusion or exclusion in work‑integrated learning, academic needs in designing inclusive work‑integrated learning, so what do they need to know about inclusive design for WIL and I'll also be exploring the applicability of universal design for work‑integrated learning.
In terms of the significance of the study I'm hoping that it will expand on existing models of WIL so that all students have access to success in work‑integrated learning and I hope that it will also broaden definitions of employability which is inclusive of a diverse student population.
So in terms of a bit of background, work‑integrated learning ‑ I know you all are familiar with work‑integrated learning, the definition that I'm using in my work is the definition from the University of Wollongong, defined as activities that integrate work practices with learning in an academic institution. So WIL provides students with exposure to work‑based activities related to their field of study to better prepare them for their careers post‑graduation and, as I'm sure you are all aware, WIL programs have been found to generate a range of outcomes in students' careers, their academics as well as their personal development.
Looking more closely now at the issues of access to WIL and the benefits of WIL, so we know that current day students of higher education expect WIL to be part of their university experience and governments and institutions also incentivise broadening access to WIL as a means of developing labour market ready graduates. Research to date has found that the benefits of WIL include students persisting with their studies, students choosing to remain in higher education and, importantly, students experiencing positive employment outcomes post‑graduation. However, these positive outcomes aren't experienced equally by all participants of WIL. So the research that I've come across has shown that WIL participants from diverse groups can face barriers accessing success in WIL. Students from diverse groups who don't have access to the social and cultural capitals that are held by dominant groups in the workplace are particularly disadvantaged, so these students face barriers demonstrating employer‑held ideals of professionalism and employability and thus may not be experiencing the full breadth of positive outcomes that we expect from WIL.
Compounding this issue is a gap in the data on the WIL experiences specifically of diverse students and there's very little research on equity diversity and inclusion considerations in work‑integrated learning. This contributes to a gap in recognising the limits of accessibility and inclusion in WIL programs. What we tend to look at when we look at WIL research is we report on outcomes in a very broad way, so we're reporting on all student participants without necessarily looking at the diversity within those student cohorts. That's what I'm interested in doing in this research.
So in terms of my research questions and the aims, so the research will be centred around a primary question: how can we design WIL activities that benefit all students? And to answer this question I'm looking at three sub-questions, how does the design of WIL influence students' experiences of inclusion in WIL; what are the needs of university academics in designing inclusive WIL; and how might universal design for learning align to the design of WIL pedagogy?
So the aim of the research is to understand how to design inclusive WIL by doing three things. The first is by understanding students' experiences of inclusion in workplace‑based WIL. The second is understanding the needs of WIL educators to enable designing for inclusion, and the third is to explore the applicability of universal design for learning to work‑integrated learning.
So why UDL specifically? Well, it's been proven to optimise learning for all people or for all learners and it reduces the need for one‑off accommodations to facilitate inclusion and rather designs learning that's accessible for everyone from the start so in a resource‑limited context like higher education and the labour market universal design for learning is a framework that might benefit all in the application to work‑integrated learning. So I'm interested in exploring that.
I do want to acknowledge that there is a very complex ecosystem that is WIL and even more complex is the design and delivery of accessible, inclusive and equitable work‑integrated learning. So there are many factors that can influence a student's access to and experience of WIL, the design of WIL experiences, there's the employer partners buy‑in and their capacity for change, there's the faculty buy‑in and capacity for change, there's university support, industry support and the student's own background and the preparation that they experience. So all of these things influence how a student might experience WIL and the extent to which they have access to WIL and they feel included in WIL. So studying the influence of each of these factors could be a PhD on their own so I do want to make sure that I'm clear I'm narrowing in on the design of WIL and specifically looking at finding empirical evidence on the inclusion needs for WIL design. So what is it about the way in which we design WIL that could be changed to make WIL more inclusive.
I did do a literature review already, so I'll share some of what I found there. The approach I took to literature review is to undertake a scoping review to understand what research exists already in discussing considerations of equity, diversity and inclusion in work‑integrated learning, and to ground discussions on this topic I want to introduce how inclusion is understood for this research and how it differs from access. So to do so I draw on the work of Gidley and colleagues who in discussing social inclusion in Australia noted that access is about numbers and percentages and does not necessarily reflect student participation or success, nor does it reveal anything about the quality of the education that is accessed. They propose that inclusion, on the other hand, aims to enable all to participate fully in society with respect to their human dignity.
So this study, therefore, understands inclusion as an end state where all students have equitable opportunities to experience success in WIL regardless of the barriers and obstacles that they might face.
So in researching considerations of equity, diversity and inclusion, or EDI, in work‑integrated learning the literature review I undertook found that incentives and strategies have focused primarily on enhancing access, but have shown little consideration about inclusion, so we get students into these WIL programs but we're not necessarily considering as deeply what experience they're having once they're in the programs.
Another key finding was that have equity, diversity and inclusion must be considered at all stages of work‑integrated learning to ensure that students experience inclusive WIL and the findings that the literature review found were aligned to the four stages of WIL that are put forth by the Australian Collaborative Education Network which is looking at equity, diversity and inclusion at the design stage pre-placement, during placement, as well as post-placement. So whilst my research proposes to focus on the process of designing WIL only, it's evident from the literature that all four stages of WIL need to be considered in order for us to design for inclusion.
Looking more specifically now at WIL design for inclusion, my literature review found five factors that influence students’ experiences in WIL. The first is whether WIL is embedded or optional. Some studies found that embedded WIL is preferable where students must complete WIL as part of their degree. This allows students to earn while they learn and allows them to apply what they're learning in class to a structured work environment. However, this approach can disadvantage students if embedded WIL is unpaid. This practice can disadvantage students who can't afford to undertake unpaid placements instead of paid work and so where possible WIL should be paid to allow for greater inclusion.
The third factor is involving all stakeholders, so involving all stakeholders in WIL design is highlighted through many studies as a means of designing inclusive WIL. This can be a complex process because there are many different stakeholders in WIL with sometimes competing interests, so it is important to allow the time to engage those stakeholders in the process of designing WIL.
The fourth factor is stakeholder goal clarity, so ensuring that all stakeholders understand the responsibility and are clear on what their goals are from engaging in WIL. If this can be done it's going to enhance students' experiences of inclusion in WIL and where all stakeholders are clear and WIL activities align with achieving goals for all parties we have much more enabling WIL experiences.
Then finally, the fifth factor is considerations around placement duration and it's important for these to be considered carefully. The research points to some mixed results. There is no such thing as an ideal WIL placement duration but it's agreed that contextual factors, such as discipline of study or practice, student needs and preferences and the host organisation's capacity should be considered in terms of what works best in each particular context.
So whilst these five factors were identified through the literature review, there was a gap that emerged as I conducted the literature review on how to design WIL for inclusion. So it's my hope that the research I conduct would be contributing to closing that gap.
Now, in terms of the theoretical framework for the study I'm drawing on two main theoretical frameworks so the first is the work of Pierre Bourdieu who was a French sociologist and for the purpose of this study I'll be drawing on his concept of capitals which are economic and cultural and symbolic and social assets that we all hold or that we develop over a lifetime. So Bourdieu proposed that higher education was a means through which individuals can acquire capitals and so by associating work‑integrated learning that takes place within higher education is supposedly a means through which we hope that students acquire capitals that make them more ready for the labour market or more "employable". I'll be using Bourdieu's theory to examine students' experiences of perceived capital acquisition through work‑integrated learning and their perceived experiences of inclusion or exclusion in WIL.
The second grouping of theories I'll be using are asset‑based pedagogies. These pedagogies offer an important balance to Bourdieu's work because his work has been criticised by some scholars as focusing on diversity as a deficit rather than an asset. So Bourdieu's work enables an understanding of the influences of what's happening when a student undertakes WIL activities in the labour market, asset‑based pedagogies will frame the exploration of the design for more inclusive WIL activities and asset‑based pedagogies align very well with the universal design for learning framework.
In terms of the methodology for my research or how I plan to undertake this research, so there will be two research sites of course at the University of Wollongong as well as at Toronto Metropolitan University due to my role here. The study itself will have four distinct stages of research and stages 2, 3 and 4 will each engage different research participants. Stage 2 will engage undergraduate students who have completed at least one semester of work‑placed based WIL and who are first in their family to attend university. So this group of students is of interest in particular to me because they make up a growing proportion of the university student population both in Australia and in Canada and these students often hold multiple intersecting identities, so this group faces unique barriers navigating WIL as they often lack the workplace‑specific social and cultural capital held by their peers from dominant groups. I'll be interviewing students about their experiences of workplace-based WIL and specifically any barriers to inclusion they experienced as first generation students and also asking them to share other parts of their identity that think they ‑ that they believe may have contributed to their experience of inclusion or exclusion in WIL.
The third stage of research will engage academics who design WIL. So these academics will be invited to respond to a survey that will assess their knowledge and attitudes towards designing WIL for inclusion. I hope if you are an academic who designs WIL who is here you may get this survey and would respond to it. So after this survey of academics who design WIL a model of universal design for learning applicable to WIL will be conceptualised, and in the final stage of research I'll be engaging members of national WIL associations such as the Australian Collaborative Education Network and Cooperative Education and Work‑integrated Learning Canada and I will be running focus groups with their members to explore the applicability of this model of UDL for WIL.
So in summary, the proposed study and what I hope to do over the next four years or so is to explore students' experiences of inclusion in workplace‑based work integrated learning, to understand the needs of academics who design ‑ in order to design more inclusive WIL and to explore the applicability of UDL for WIL. I'm hoping that as a result of this study we will be expanding on existing models of WIL so all students have access to success in WIL and will be able to broaden definitions of employability that are inclusive of a diverse student population. I've got a lot of references here and I welcome any questions or feedback that you might have.
DARLENE: Thank you so much, Emily. Really encourage everybody if you've got any questions to put them into the Q&A and I'll ask them to Emily. Just to let you know that the PowerPoint will be on ADCET in the next day or two, as well as the recording, especially with all those research. I think sometimes that can be going down a rabbit hole looking at all that research so it's fabulous to have that all in one place, so thank you for that. Has anybody got any questions of Emily? We certainly at ADCET are keen to promote your research and certainly when you're looking for participants and so forth, if you are, or feedback, really happy to do that.
Somebody has asked a question interested to read more on the literature review. Where will this be published?
EMILY: Hopefully published soon. I'm conducting my PhD by compilation which means I'll be putting out a series of publications that make up my thesis and my literature review is the first publication that's currently under review, so fingers crossed I should hear back in a couple of months and that should be published, hopefully in the New Year.
DARLENE: Excellent. We'll certainly get an article up once that's done and to be able to link to that so people can keep abreast of it which is great. In your research one of the questions is have you come across any good case studies. Are you seeing good practice out there you might be able to share?
EMILY: Yeah, there is. Yeah. Little pockets that I've come across and I think where I'm seeing some really great work is where there's some ‑ a really deep understanding of a specific student population and then a program that's designed around that population. So an example that I've come across is, for example, a work study program that was designed specifically for international students. So that program being designed specifically for that student population sort of allows them ‑ allows the designers of it to think a bit more intentionally about the needs of those students and provide assistance and pre-placement preparation during placement preparation and post‑placement support to the students in a way that's serving their distinct needs. What I haven't seen as much is those types of programs being scaleable to a more diverse student population. So it seems to be working with very distinct populations but not necessarily within diverse student populations.
DARLENE: It's interesting because that intentional design, but probably would like that intentional design to be the whole WIL. Yeah, no, it will be ‑ hopefully your research will support us in this work.
EMILY: Hope So.
DARLENE: We've got some great feedback so people are really looking forward to the findings and the end product. One question was ‑ someone's apologising they had to pop out so they didn't actually get to hear that, but will you be looking for participants outside of the University of Wollongong and will you restrict your research to undergraduate then to post‑graduate experience?
EMILY: So the first part of that, I do have to restrict it to the University of Wollongong just for ethics purposes, although I'd love to engage students at other institutions. For the purpose of my PhD, yes, I would probably look to expand that after the PhD is done just to continue understanding the needs of students. I'm looking specifically undergraduate students because that's where most WIL happens in universities is with undergraduates. So at this stage not planning to extend to graduate students, although WIL is equally important for them.
DARLENE: That's brilliant. Someone's asked, Emily, and Emily has asked Emily, how do you gather participants ‑ or how do you gain trust and also making academics see it is viable, so any hints or tricks to that?
EMILY: Gaining trust in terms of the student participants?
DARLENE: Yes.
EMILY: Yeah, absolutely. So I'll be recruiting students through either their subject coordinator, so people they already know at the University of Wollongong, and here in Toronto, because my office oversees the programs that I'll be recruiting from, there's already a sort of relationship that's developed with the students, at least they have a relationship with our office so there's a certain level of trust that's developed there. In terms of recruiting the participants, it's certainly challenging to do research with students at any time. They're really busy, they've got lots of things on and so asking them for an hour of their time to sit down for an interview is a lot. So I'm hopeful, I'm aiming for 15 students from each institution, I'm hopeful that I can get that. I forget the second part of the question about academics.
DARLENE: It was around academics and getting them to see the benefit and viability of the research.
EMILY: I completely acknowledge the incredible pressures that are on academics and asking them to now think of WIL design in a different way is an extra thing that we're asking them to do that they're probably not paid for and they're probably not getting any relief for and all of the things. So what my hope is that we make it as easy as possible for them to make small changes so that it is a more inclusive experience for their students.
I don't think that there are significant changes that need to happen to some of our existing WIL models in order to make them inclusive, but those steps need to happen so that more students can see themselves participating and succeeding in these programs. So trying to make it as easy as possible whilst acknowledging all of the challenges they experience.
DARLENE: Definitely. You raised the good question around payment while undertaking your work‑integrated learning experience and I know that that's something that in Australia at the moment we have the universities' Accord which is certainly looking at a whole range and sweep of changes for the higher education sector and I know one of those things discussed is around the fact that, you know, not being paid in an internship or not being paid in your work‑integrated learning context can actually limit people’s capacity to undertake those. Have you found any programs that help fund WIL from both employer and student?
EMILY: Other than philanthropic funding or one‑off government funding, in my experience there isn't anything that is as sustainable as employers paying for the labour they are getting from the students who are working for them, and in some instances as well that sort of three‑way arrangement where students are getting paid from sort of a separate entity can be very complicated for universities to administer. So the ‑ and there is reluctance to take some one‑off funding because if the next cohort of students doesn't have access to that funding then there's some sort of inequity that's experienced there.
So I acknowledge that's also a challenge. There are some disciplines and some industries where historically it's so entrenched that students will complete their internships or their work terms unpaid, but we continue to see that that means students are excluded from those disciplines because they just can't afford to undertake those unpaid placements. So at some point there's got to be some give in order to ensure that we get more students coming through those really important programs.
DARLENE: Yep, definitely. Another question from David, do you have any comments about the role that assessment plays in exclusion/inclusion?
EMILY: Yeah, absolutely, and there's lots of ‑ in my literature review I came across a lot of existing research that looks at exclusionary assessment practices. So at the point of assessing that's where we're really passing judgment on these students and saying whether or not they fit a model of employability or a model of what a professional should be, and so at the assessment stage is where students can experience immense amounts of exclusion, because whilst they may have gone through a work term thinking they've done their best, but at the point of assessment they are told that they didn't quite meet the mark for reasons that they might not even understand because no‑one ever told them about the hidden curriculum that existed in the workplace. So there's a lot of great work that's being done out there around co‑designing assessment with students and assessing throughout the period of employment so that students can get the feedback continuously and of course correct and adjust along the way so that we're not putting all the pressure on one final assessment at the end of a work term where students might not have ever been given the guidance on how to succeed in that work term in the first place.
DARLENE: Leonie has given a shout out for the Australian Collective Education Network conference which is happening in October next year, so hope that you present at that. There you are, you're invited back to Australia.
EMILY: Yes, I actually was planning my next trip around that conference so I'm hoping to be there.
DARLENE: Fabulous. That's great. That would be great. Someone has written they're looking forward to the publishing. Just wondering if all discipline WIL programs are considered in the research?
EMILY: Yes. Yep. So we're casting our net fairly wide. The limiting factor will be that it has to be workplace‑based. So it would be any discipline that allows for workplaced‑based WIL so meaning a student is doing the placement in the workplace rather than a WIL experience that they might have done in a classroom or a simulation.
DARLENE: Excellent. Michael has just asked is there a reason why the host employer's perspectives are not being included here?
EMILY: Because I think that would be a PhD on its own and there's a lot of folks who have done some great research on what happens in terms of how we can influence host employers to provide more inclusive experiences, and I sort of gave that answer that it could be a PhD on its own because that's what I keep hearing from my supervisors. I keep going around “what about this factor and what about this factor”. I really had to narrow it down to WIL design and academics who design WIL, but not for the purpose of this study, but there's some great research being done out there around the role host employers can play.
DARLENE: Yeah, it's so difficult, isn't it, trying to narrow down the scope of these things because they can just be so huge. I did find ‑ we did do a webinar on one of the ACEN projects around supporting host employees, so I don't know if any of the team can quickly find that, I was just trying to quickly find that now and put a link into the chat for participants if they want to go back and listen to that webinar and get information on that, because there's some great resources out there for host providers that were supported through ACEN to do. Leonie has just asked are you only focusing on workplaced WIL or also considering online WIL placements?
EMILY: So I'm looking at workplace‑based WIL but that work can have been completed in a hybrid or remote manner. So if a student is working for a company but they're working remotely that would count towards my research, but I wouldn't be considering any student that has completed purely online experience with no interaction in the workplace. Hopefully that answers your question.
DARLENE: Excellent. You also mentioned something about finding differences between inclusiveness and accessibility in WIL. I missed parts of this when you spoke about it. Could you touch on that again?
EMILY: So I think a lot of us, and I include myself in this, who oversee WIL programs, we pride ourselves on the number of students that come through. Every year we have more and more students that are accessing our WIL programs and we think that in and of itself is great, which it is, because we want more students experiencing these things, but that is only giving students access ‑ you know we're getting them into the door but we're not necessarily asking ourselves what do they experience once they are in the room, once they're in the workplace. So access is looking at who is getting through the door, inclusion is looking at what is the experience that those people are having once they're in work‑integrated learning and is that experience inclusive and accepting of the diversity of people that come through the door. Does that make sense in terms of the distinction?
DARLENE: I think it does, yeah. It does. Very interested in hearing more about stakeholder engagement and the stakeholder role. Academics would find engagement of specific team expertise saves issues during the placement, for instance the disability and accessibility advisers. In your research so far have you seen any good examples of stakeholders working well?
EMILY: Not many. Again it's the sort of one‑off examples of I think the ‑ having a really good group of people who come together and who are genuinely interested in achieving the same goals. I think that's the key piece, is having alignment across the goals, understanding what the purpose of a WIL experience is and all genuinely agreeing to that purpose. Where we have issues with stakeholders or where we might disconnect is where the employer partner is just looking for free labour or cheap labour and the university is just looking to place a student so they can report that number, and the academic’s also just trying to get through the semester and wants to just place their students and have a high placement rate. All of those goals are very disconnected and are disconnected from the student who is wanting to get relevant experience in the labour market. So if the stakeholders can align on what their goals are, and there could be many goals, then we see some more positive working relationships with the possibility to make more inclusive experiences.
DARLENE: Indeed. And just a final question, unless someone else pops one in – no, we've got another one there. They keep coming, which is great. Here we were thinking we were going to give everybody an early minute. In your literature review have you found any interconnection between sound inclusive WIL practices and sound employment strategies for people with disabilities by the same institution?
EMILY: The short answer is no. No, I haven't, and I'm reluctant to elaborate any more on that because I haven't looked specifically at students with disabilities as a particular cohort. Most of my research is looking at students who are first in family, and then more broadly students from diverse equity groups. So I haven't looked at specifically students with disabilities.
DARLENE: That's fine. And then will you be asking about the role of co‑workers versus managers and supervisors?
EMILY: Yep, yep, that's part of my student interviews, so asking them about their overall relationships with people in the workplace and how that influences ‑ how that has influenced their experience in WIL.
DARLENE: Yep. Excellent. Well, that's it for the questions. So thank you so much, Emily, for those‑ ‑ ‑
EMILY: Thank you.
DARLENE: We did put in the chat our building host organisation capacity to provide safe and equitable WIL which was funded through ACEN, so that's there for people to follow up on if they would like to read or hear more about that presentation. Thank you so much. This research is really exciting and I think everybody in the audience are saying exactly ‑ and feel exactly how I feel. It's so exciting someone is focusing on this work and we really look forward to the outcomes and outputs, so thank you so much and we will keep the conversation going.
PRESENTER: Thanks for listening to this ADCET podcast. We hope that you learned something new about making tertiary education more inclusive and accessible for students with disability. You can keep up to date with our future webinars and podcasts by signing up for our fortnightly newsletter at our website adcet.edu.au/newsletter.
Thanks again for listening to this podcast by the Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training, Supporting You, Supporting Students.