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Professional practice and construction undergraduates' employability skills

conference contribution
posted on 2023-09-01, 14:02 authored by Barbara Vohmann, Ian Frame
Employability skills are known to be valuable to undergraduates when entering the workplace and expected by employers, yet, in construction as in many disciplines, these skills often are not well developed. However, construction professionals frequently work in complex dynamic environments and employability skills may enhance undergraduates' practitioner effectiveness. Therefore it is important tutors exploit opportunities to help undergraduates develop their employability skills. This paper examines the extent to which built environment undergraduates in a post-1992 university have opportunity to develop their employability skills through assessment. Data was gathered from students' evaluation of their development of employability skills and from written assessment feedback provided by tutors to students. Thematic analysis of the data was undertaken. Findings suggest students have limited understanding of employability skills and tutors give limited attention to their development. The examination of written feedback supported this latter point - tutors' major concerns were to develop students' subject knowledge and academic skills. It seems, then, promoting development of built environment students' employability skills may be an underused aspect of undergraduate learning provision. This suggests enhancing the student - tutor assessment dialogue offers the opportunity to better prepare students for industry and their professional practice.

History

Page range

353-362

ISBN

978-0-9955463-0-1

Conference proceeding

Professional Practice and Construction Undergraduates Employability Skills

Name of event

Proceedings 32nd Annual ARCOM Conference

Location

Manchester, UK

Event start date

2016-09-05

Event finish date

2016-09-07

File version

  • Other

Language

  • eng

Legacy posted date

2017-01-11

Legacy creation date

2017-01-04

Legacy Faculty/School/Department

ARCHIVED Faculty of Science & Technology (until September 2018)

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