Learning for the Workplace: Exploring professional identity in search of meaningful alternatives to student work placement

Webster, Gemma; Smith, Sally; Smith, Colin

Abstract

Moves towards the marketisation of higher education have led to greater priority being placed upon students undertaking relevant work experience while they study. Recognising a strong demand for placements, the e-Placement Scotland project set out to increase the availability of quality paid placements for computing students and to support course leaders and students to take advantage of these. Not every student will successfully obtain a placement, and so e-Placement Scotland aimed to ‘add value’ for students in various other ways. Interventions such as industry tech talks and speed networking sessions were deployed to develop awareness of the employment landscape and encourage students to start thinking about their self-identification, easing their transition into the workplace. Adopting the lens of identity theory, the paper explores student and professional identity in order to recognise the transition from student to graduate, and identifies the role of placement and other value-adding activities in that transition.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Society for Research into Higher Education 2016
• Start Date: Dec 7, 2016
• End Date: Dec 9, 2016
• Deposit Date: Sep 20, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 20, 2016
• Keywords: professional identity, student identity, work-integrated learning, employability, placement
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/366775
• Contract Date: Sep 20, 2016