This study presents a course model to demonstrate how students' current work experiences can be utilized as a viable alternative to internships. While internships have been shown to enhance a student's college experience, underserved and underrepresented students are often unable to pursue this high impact practice due to financial,…

There is a growing interest in understanding and evidencing quality WIL practice across higher education institutions. Despite this increasing focus there is limited evidence of shared institutional wide approaches to defining attributes of quality, establishing benchmarks of WIL in practice (i.e. the enacted WIL curriculum), and implementing a…

This study investigated teachers' perceptions of barriers to planning and organizing work-based learning experiences (WBLEs) for students with intellectual disability. Participants were high school special education teachers who had at least one student with an intellectual disability age 14 or older on their caseload (N = 256). Teachers were…

In the higher education environment, work-integrated learning (WIL) is widely considered a key component of developing work-ready and professional graduates. Quality evaluation systems are needed to ensure continual improvement and development of WIL programs focusing on all stakeholder perspectives, not just the students or the sponsoring…

Extended learning opportunities (ELOs) have gained traction in Maine and nationally as a means for students to develop "college, career, and life" skills through out-of-classroom experiences. As ELOs are not structured or regulated by the state, they vary significantly in range, scope, and access. This report offers insight into…

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…

Drawing upon social cognitive career theory model of career self-management, we examined the relationship between work placement supervisor support (WPSS) and students' proactive career behaviors (PCB), mediating role of work placement learning self-efficacy and the moderating effect of proactivity in the indirect relationships. Data were…

It is widely acknowledged that graduates need to develop skills and competences beyond the theoretical knowledge nurtured within higher education curricula. In the last twenty years there has been an increased interest in supporting learners with work-based learning (WBL) (e.g. apprenticeships, practice-based lab sessions, project-based learning).…

Purpose: Students experience a range of benefits by participating in work-based learning (WBL) including increased employability skills, career development learning and enhanced industry networks. However, some approaches to WBL are not easily accessed by all students, with placement-based models placing demands on students to attend a physical…

Using data collected from co-operative education students at two different times over a four-month long work term, we test and find support for the hypothesis that students' approaches to learning explain the relationship between their lifelong learning characteristics and work adjustment. Students' lifelong learning characteristics were…

This study was undertaken within the Degree in Clinical Technology program at Durban University of Technology, South Africa. Clinical technology curricula in South Africa have undergone several changes in response to the demand for a more integrated curriculum. This served as a catalyst for this study, which explored students' and academics'…

This research identifies the soft (employability) skills that key stakeholders view as essential for young people with intellectual disability (ID) to gain and maintain open employment. The study subsequently examined the work experience opportunities for young people with ID to develop these soft skills during their school years. Qualitative data…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the motivation and expectations of stakeholders (students, teachers, and employers) related to their participation in simulated work-integrated learning (WIL) taking place in a form of work-related projects in an academic environment. Analysis is based on data gathered from 49 students, four teachers and six…

The positive impact of work-integrated learning (WIL) is well-known, but there are substantial gaps in the literature related to the benefits Indigenous students receive and Indigenous students' perspective on those benefits. This article reports on a mixed methods research project into Indigenous students' perspectives on their curricular WIL…

Only a few information and communication technology (ICT) work-integrated learning (WIL) projects involving universities and Indigenous partners are being reported and very little is known about the approaches that are followed. This article reports on successful student work placements in Indigenous communities when codeveloping software for the…