Maximising stakeholders’ benefits of work integrated learning programs: schools of chemical engineering

Abstract

Stakeholders’ perceptions are important for the success of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) programs. Operating a WIL program successfully requires close collaborations among three key stakeholders: the institution, the industry, and the student. The strength of these collaborations depends on benefits that subsequently arise. This thesis explores the benefits stakeholders could gain from participating in WIL and investigates their perceptions of WIL’s values. This research aims at: • Exploring the stakeholders’ perceptions of benefits they receive and the effectiveness of WIL; • Recommending an operational framework for a WIL program; and • Proposing a structured reflective practice as a tool to help academics improve student learning. The recommended operational framework suggests strategies that maximises WIL’s stakeholders’ benefits. These benefits will hopefully lead to more engagements by the stakeholders in pledging recurrent financial support and committing to being permanent placements. The University of Wisconsin Extension’s logic model was adapted to develop a WIL operational model. This model was used as guidelines to operate and evaluate a WIL program. Three WIL programs in schools of chemical engineering in Australia and Thailand were studied. Based on their roles and responsibilities within WIL, its stakeholders were classified into nine categories, comprising university executives, academics, current students, alumni, industrial mentors (sponsors), employers, alumni and sponsors, alumni and employers, and sponsors and employers. The data of the stakeholders’ perceptions were obtained through three collection methods: • Student reflection analysis – to investigate learning development and attribute improvement of students, • Questionnaire – to explore WIL operational models and issues, and • Interviews – to investigate what benefits the stakeholders gained from participating WIL, how they perceived these benefits, and the problems that occurred. Research results show that WIL could help students improve their learning and graduate attributes such as ethics through interactions with professionals. The results also reveal important factors that could interfere with student learning at placement: placements’ policies, engineers’ academic backgrounds and behaviours, academics’ experience, and students’ learning attitudes and skills. The questionnaire shows that improving students’ experiences and strengthening industry linkages are key factors underpinning the establishment of WIL programs by institutions. While WIL offers an opportunity for students to enhance their learning experience, additional support from the university, such as the management of academics’ workload or administrative issues, may be required to consolidate the industry linkage. As for industry placement, most companies perceive recruiting prospective employees and obtaining project results as valuable benefits from participating in a WIL program. Interview results reveal that a WIL program could be a knowledge source for placement and help its engineers improve their mentoring skills. Based on results from the investigation, the study recommends a WIL operational framework that maximises these stakeholders’ benefits. This recommended framework can be applied to any WIL program that allows students to work in an authentic placement with explicit and well-defined learning outcomes. This thesis developed a structured reflective practice as a tool to help academics prepare students for placement. The reflective practice comprises three key components: trigger questions, an analysis framework, and feedback frameworks. The trigger questions, adapted from Doel (2009), are aimed at framing students’ thoughts and structuring their writing. The questions comprise a series of inquiries about certain events that took place during students’ academic life and their subsequent responses and learning outcomes. The framework for reflective practice was developed from a combination of the work of Knowles, Holton and Swanson (2005) and Boud, Keogh and Walker (1985b) who investigated if students’ reflection showed evidence of learning development. The investigation classified students’ reflections into five categories: observation, realisation, action, evaluation, and change. Two feedback frameworks for student reflections were developed. The first framework without actions aimed at provoking students’ critical thinking and encouraging students to implement their ideas, while the second framework with actions aimed at encouraging students to enhance their learning. Investigating stakeholders’ perceptions of a WIL program through reflection analysis, a questionnaire, and interviews can be a good approach for evaluating the effectiveness of the program. The evaluation results can also be used to recommend an operational framework that maximises the stakeholders’ benefits. Implementation of the recommended framework is suggested to investigate the effectiveness and limitations of the framework. The study shows that structured reflective practice could help academics prepare students for learning in placement by providing feedback and identifying students who might have difficulty with independent learning. Moreover, the feedback framework could assist the academics in providing constructive critiques. It is recommended that this reflective practice be used over a period of time, such as one semester, to allow students to develop the ability to learn independently. Finally, the importance of reflections should be highlighted to ensure that students stay attentive during placements and reap maximum benefits from the feedback.