"Working Together to Improve Psychology Student Employability" HEA Psychology Network, Leeds, June Enhancing the employability of undergraduate Psychology students at Glasgow Caledonian University. Douglas Forbes, Rachel Mulholland, Lesley McAleavy & Mike Wrennall

The context Research to help us understand issues relating to their part-time work, and its impact on academic study, commenced with students on the BSc (Hons) Psychology at GCAL, c This paved the way for subsequent work into how we could enhance their employability prospects after graduation. A spur to the latter work was the rejection by the Programme Board, both on grounds of cost and practicality, of requests from student reps for work placements to be built into their Programme. If we could not provide formal placements, what else might we do to enhance students’ employability? The early work was started by Mike Wrennall and myself, with some financial support from the Psychology Department, and from GCAL’s academic development fund.

Moving forward on student employability We adopted a 2 pronged approach. 1.We developed a Voluntary Work & Mentoring Scheme (VWMS), to encourage and help students to gain appropriate experience of work of a supportive and helping nature. The VWMS aims to allow them, through undertaking a few hours voluntary work per week over a minimum period of a semester, to develop the experience and supportive inter-personal skills which employers traditionally have expected psychology graduates to possess, but which rarely feature in the academic curriculum (Fletcher, Rose & Radford, 1991). Through their voluntary work, they can also gain experience of the type which is valued by the gate keepers to psychology post-graduate programmes. 2.We developed, over a period of time, 2 academic credit bearing optional modules to promote employability: * The 1st (at Level 2), Psychology and Work, was based on part-time work which students already undertake to boost their finances. * The 2nd (at Level 3/4), Psychology Related Work Experience, built upon voluntary work which a small number of the students were already undertaking.

The optional modules The modules are prefaced on the fact that most of our students were probably already acquiring valuable knowledge, skills and attitudes in their part-time jobs - experiences which should enhance their employability. However, students were often largely unaware of, and unable to articulate, what they had learned, or how it relates to the academic curriculum. Most would therefore have been unable to articulate any of this to potential employers (see also Akhurst / THEA- PsyNetwork, 2004(?)). The modules therefore require the students to reflect upon their work experience. The students also give a presentation to their fellow students on their work, and write essays on the relationship between aspects of their part- time work and relevant parts of the psychology academic curriculum. The L2 module has a strong organisational psychology orientation. The L4 Psychology Related Work Experience module requires students to maintain systematic work logs, and to identify in a highly structured manner what skills and attributes they are learning, how these relate to their longer-term goals, and what other skills and knowledge they still need to acquire. They are required to provide evidence for each of these claims. We have already published material relating to the above work.

Aiming University Work Project Late in 2007, the Aiming University Work Project got under way - see separate poster. This is a 3 year strategic change project funded by the Scottish Funding Council. It involves us at GCAL, along with Glasgow University (the lead partner), and St Andrews University. The project’s aim is to identify opportunities for enhancing the employability prospects of students on non-vocational u/g programmes, in ways which are sustainable. It has focussed to date on 6 pilot disciplines / programmes located across the 3 universities, Psychology at GCAL being one. Lessons learned from these pilots will subsequently be rolled out across the HE (Scottish) sector.

Psychology pilot - the early stages Funding from the Project allowed us to employ a Student Liaison Officer to re-invigorate the VWMS, and to look at making it more applicable to other non-vocational programmes in addition to Psychology. Part of the time of one of our senior academic staff was bought out (equivalent to 1 day per week) to look at how to develop further sustainable employability initiatives for our students. As a first step, an on-line survey of our BSc Psychology students was carried out, which showed that, in spite of our efforts to date, only 15% of respondents thought the Programme was doing enough to develop their employability.

Student survey - key findings The most frequent suggestions for developing provision were: provide more information about future jobs and their requirements; provide more practical experience and placements; lecturers should demonstrate how their material relates to carrying out a job; provide new modules which emphasise employability - opinion was divided as to how many, at what level, and whether these should be optional or compulsory.

New employability module These findings were fed back to colleagues, and also used to develop ideas for enhancing employability on the Programme, including possible new modules. A range of proposals was presented to the Programme Board for discussion, following which further development work was carried out, and the plans brought back to the Board. As a result, a new first level module was finally approved, which is scheduled for implementation in the coming session. This will be a compulsory L1 employability module. It will force students, as early as Semester B of their 1st year, to identify and learn about employment options for when they graduate, collect information about the entry requirements to these positions, and start planning towards their own graduate employment. It will involve substantial student-centred learning and initiative, and incorporate elements of PDP, a scheme concerning which many students express enthusiasm, but with which few have so far engaged on a regular and systematic basis. We thus propose to emphasise employability right from the start, and enable students to engage with it regularly throughout their programme of study.

Placements Thanks to additional pump priming support from the School of Life Sciences, we have been able to continue to employ Mike Wrennall for a further period to undertake additional developmental work. It was decided finally to grasp the nettle, and explore the possibility of providing a limited number of year-long work placements. Various models were explored*, and an outline proposal put to the Programme Board. This received the blessing of the Programme Board in November A pilot scheme has now been set up, and students are being recruited. Students can opt to go on placement at the end of their 3rd level, taking a year out of study and then returning for their final honours year; the placements will not be credit bearing, though some formative assessment work will be required of the students. Early signs are that those placements most likely to be taken up are the ones which can offer some payment to the students. A serious stumbling block continues to be finding placements in the ever popular clinical and forensic fields. * We gratefully acknowledge in particular the work undertaken at Aston University, and the advice and support of Peter Reddy, Aston University.

Putting the work into perspective We believe that, taken as a package which permeates the whole degree programme, our approach should provide our students with a firm foundation on the basis of which to enter the graduate world. The work is being formally evaluated as part of the project, as well as through our own quality control processes. We have attempted to strike a balance between an academically challenging undergraduate education which comfortably fulfills the requirements of the BPS and discipline benchmarks, and placing an appropriate emphasis on application and preparation for the world of work and citizenship. After completion of the compulsory L1 module, and taking into account the expectation that all students should continue with PDP, much of what is distinctive in terms of our employability provision is optional, though not in the sense of being an “add-on”. This package is not a final solution for us, far less a model of how all psychology departments should address the challenges. We know that we shall have to continue to work on all aspects of our provision, to allow our students to keep ahead in a highly competitive and rapidly changing world. But with these caveats, we do feel that what we are doing represents good practice, and it has certainly been fully endorsed by our External Assessors.

Acknowledgements The core Project project team at GCAL comprises: –Douglas Forbes - project leader at GCAL –Rachel Mulholland - Management Group –Robert Ingram - Lead Researcher –Lesley McAleavy - Student Liaison Officer and Project Administrator –Mike Wrennall - Part-time Curriculum Developer, and Student Placements Officer –Joanne Brodie - Research Assistant Also associated with the work: –Nuala Toman (formerly Lead Researcher) –Elaine Duncan (Psychology Careers Tutor) –Lindsey Burns (Psychology Related Work Experience module leader, and member of Management Group, prior to maternity leave) –David Carse (Student Association, and Management Group member) –Mike Mannion (Dean of Maths & Computing) - grant holder at GCAL. I am delighted to acknowledge the invaluable contributions made by the Scottish Funding Council and the above colleagues to this work.