Constituting integration in work-integrated education and learning

Abstract

ABSTRACT Common to the effectiveness of what constitutes work-integrated learning (WIL) and work-integrated education (WIE) is how students’ experiences in tertiary educational and work settings are integrated. WIL comprises how individuals come to reconcile and construct meaning, capacities, and dispositions from experiences encountered in both settings. WIE comprises the organisation of experiences and educational interventions to assist students in intentionally integrating the two sets of experiences as part of a planned educational process. These two forms of integration are ontologically and epistemologically distinct, yet central to their processes and outcomes, which are also ontologically discrete. This paper commences by rehearsing the distinction of WIE from WIL and the centrality of integrations to both conceptions. The bases by which such integrations progress are then discussed: the provision of experiences and the process of experiencing. Considerations of the tertiary educational processes and processes of promoting learning to realise effective outcomes for students follow. These draw on findings from projects that sought seeking to integrate the two sets of experiences. The sociocultural positioning draws on a distinction between zones of potential and proximal development that accommodate what is afforded and mediated by those experiences and how learners might mediate their integration.