Hiring new graduates is a cost-effective method of recruiting high-potential talent into organizations. Despite recent focus on graduate employability in the Australian higher education (HE) sector, a discrepancy remains between employer expectations of graduate work readiness (WR), and graduate perceptions of preparedness to commence professional…

The University of Sydney has introduced a program of engaging engineering students throughout their degree program in diverse forms of exposure to, and engagement with, professional practice. As part of this program students are required to write detailed reflections on each activity. These reflections provide a rich source of information…

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is proliferating in university courses across many countries. Like many educational practices, students' experience of it is shaped by the assessment processes adopted. Does assessment support or inhibit what WIL seeks to foster? To explore how students experience assessment in WIL, a small-scale investigation was…

While at university, students increasingly have opportunities to play roles as consultants, student representatives, co-researchers or curriculum co-designers, and co-creation between university staff and students has received considerable attention in recent literature. While there is some evidence of co-creation with industry and community…

Although there is a substantial literature critical of the colonising discourses of higher education in both teaching and learning and research, there has been relatively little commentary about work integrated learning (WIL) from an Indigenous perspective. Currently, the higher education discourse of WIL is dominated by a teaching and learning…

Work-integrated learning (WIL) affords students opportunities to apply skills and knowledge to practical work placements. Students potentially learn professional behaviours appropriate to their chosen industry sector. However, students may also face challenges they may not be prepared to navigate. One of these is gender bias due to assumptions…

International fieldschools to developing countries have become an important component of the university curriculum because they provide experiential learning and research skills, while also contributing a range of soft skills such as resilience, empathy, resourcefulness, critical thinking, and cross-cultural communication. Yet, with the increasing…

There are many different forms that work-integrated learning (WIL) takes and variants go by a range of different names. Based on current literature, key dimensions, shared by the various and disparate forms of WIL curricula, were identified and operationalised in a measurement model. The key dimensions identified were: authenticity, integrated…

Community engagement is growing across higher education. Cooperative education and other internships are well established in the literature as pedagogies with links to experiential and connected learning. Cooperative programs combine business, industry, educational providers and students paid on-the-job. Most studies of work-based learning focus…

A survey of 1,249 Queensland University of Technology (Australia) students concerning their learning environment found that they feel effective teaching is relevant, experiential, and interactive, while ineffective teaching lacks structure, is inappropriately paced, lacks variety, and occurs in a classroom with inadequate discipline. Implications…