Confidence and gender differences within a work-integrated learning programme: evidence from a UK higher education institution

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper explores students’ assessment of several competencies to perform a job as part of the economic undergraduate programme at the University of Surrey. The first aim is to study how confident students are in six different areas (cognitive abilities, personal characteristics, transferable competencies, subject-specific expertise, organisational awareness, and professionalism) related to competencies during their Professional Training Year (PTY). We find evidence of a positive learning curve in all six areas. Specifically, students are under-confident in those areas at the beginning of their PTY, however, under-confidence disappears during the rest of the placement year. The second aim is to investigate whether the way students assess themselves and whether the way workplace supervisors assess students’ performance are affected by gender or not. Despite differences in students’ academic performance by gender, we find little evidence of student self-assessment gender differential on competencies to perform a job, with female students rating themselves with lower scores in two areas (transferable competencies and subject-specific expertise) than male students. Finally, we find limited evidence of differences in workplace supervisors’ assessment by gender.