Educational internships: Extra‐curricular opportunities to enhance graduate employability

Abstract

The “Working towards your Future” report recommended that Universities provide opportunities, both within and outside of the curriculum, for students to develop employability skills and gain work experience. We therefore developed a programme of educational research internships, outside of the taught curriculum, which enable students develop a different set of employability skills to those gained within the laboratory.Students undertaking these internships contribute to ongoing programmes of educational research e.g. evaluation of young people's opinions of the use of research animals; use of tablet devices in practicals; development of a wiki of ethics OERs.Students are required to regularly reflect during their internship and write a short case study on completion. In these, they recognise the skills gained and the benefit of these to their future employability; they also have a tangible outcome or resource they can show to prospective employers. Educational research internships are therefore a valuable means outside of the taught curriculum for students to develop employability skills and to gain work experience. They also provide significant benefits for the Faculty in enhancing the student learning experience, facilitating pedagogical and educational research and in the external promotion of its activities.The financial support of the Leeds for Life Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.