A data-driven, multi-disciplinary approach to understanding student non-engagement with employability initiatives Presenters: Dr Stephanie McBurney, Faculty of Biological Sciences; Dr Colin Pitts, Faculty of Environment and Tim Goodall, Employability Officer, Faculty of Biological Sciences

Introduction Teaching Enhancement Project Funded by the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence www.teachingexcellence.leeds.ac.uk Collaborative project across multiple areas: Several faculties, academic and professional services and student interns LITE LITE has created a sector-leading community of excellence in teaching and scholarship Funds an annual cohort of five full-time Fellowships and ten Enhancement Projects to strengthen the University’s culture of high-quality teaching innovation, scholarship and leadership Find out more via the website, where more information about our project can be found or @LeedsTeaching on Twitter Project Collaborative project involving several colleagues, both academic and professional services Importantly, we are working with a number of student interns funded by the Project itself but also supported by other scholarship funds.

The Project Opportunities to develop students’ employability Industrial placement years Study years abroad Integrated masters programmes Credit-bearing professional development modules Mentoring schemes The project aims to look at several institutional and faculty-level initiatives To assess the benefits to students of engaging with these, in terms of their degree outcomes and graduate destinations We will also be looking at the profile of those students who are not engaging

Why? Only around 10% of eligible* students undertook an optional industrial placement year at Leeds Census Date Student information QlikView model 2012-2017. Eligible students are defined as those entering the third year of their programme of study where a year studying in industry or abroad does not form a compulsory component of the course. If we run with the hypothesis that student engagement with such initiatives is beneficial (we’ll come to this shortly) then it is concerning that only 10% of eligible students undertook and optional industrial year Why is this? Is it problematic? Are there any particular groups of students disproportionately represented in the non-engagers?

Key questions for this session Are there any statistically significant characteristics of the non-engaged student? Does non-engagement affect attainment and graduate outcomes? What are the barriers, challenges and reasons preventing engagement? What specific interventions could overcome any identified barriers to non-engagement? This leads us to a series of key questions which form the backbone of our research.

Activity 1 a) In groups, try to identify the characteristics that would influence whether an individual engages with an Industrial Placement Year (or any employability initiative) or not. b) Which categories do you think are more likely to engage?

Data Analysis

Glossary IPY=Industrial Placement Year GESO/GSOE=Graduate Employment Student Outcomes which is the same as Graduate Prospects

ENED Data Analysis

Data Analysis * = Significantly different at P<0.05

Data Analysis

Qualitative Survey Asked students about barriers to taking up industry year and study abroad. 500 responded 81 one of these were final year students who hadn’t completed an Industry Year or Study Abroad 500 students from participating faculties completed a survey to understand the student perspective about the opportunities and barriers to undertaking an IPY or SYA. The survey was tailored to the level/position of the students. Of these 500 participants, 81 were final year students how had not taken either an IPY or SYA. The questions is why so what we would like you to do is ……..

Activity 2 In groups, what factors do you think would be barriers to taking up an industry year or study abroad? 5 minutes discussing this and then gather 1-2 reasons from each group

Study Abroad or Placement: how do students feel? (Personal) (n=81) Try to tie these into the audience response and …. The 2 main reasons cited for not taking an IPY/SYA are concerns about the financial cost and leaving friends. Interestingly, nearly 15% also cited external influences, so family and or personal circumstances

Study Abroad or Placement: how do students feel (Professional) Over 70% of those who didn’t take an IPY or SYA wanted to complete their degree in 3 years. Surprisingly (alarmingly) nearly 15% think a placement would not provide valuable skills and….

Study Abroad or Placement: how do students feel (Careers) Some of the responses here suggest we need to invest more time and resource in informing students about the opportunities and outcomes associated with taking these initiatives. To the final activity ……..

Activity 3 We then interviewed students individually Have a look at some of the individual comments For the comments that you have been given, what do you think we can do to overcome some of these barriers? Depends on time, hopefully 5-10 minutes to discuss this and then feedback

What next? Further analysis Publishing the research Working with the university to find ways to overcome these barriers What next?

Questions?