Valuing Work Experience

1
Valuing Work Experience

• Widening the Gap
• Initial thoughts from an LTSN project

Mike Lowe, Ian Atkin and Jackie Bryson
2
Introduction

• Research Context
• In Search of Professional Practice
• Stakeholder Endorsements
• Concluding Remarks

3
Research Context

• To explore how HE institutions integrate work
  experience and professional practice within
  undergraduate Leisure Management programmes
• To establish the extent to which Leisure
  Management students undertake part-time
  employment whilst studying for their degrees
• To develop a model of best practice embracing all
  stakeholders

4
In Search of Professional Practice

• Professional Practice
• Primarily the application of technical or
  specialist knowledge
• Giving trainees the knowledge and theory they
  will be able to apply in practice
• Knowing-in-action a form of tacit knowledge and
  reflection (Schon, 1983, 1997)
• Relevance to leisure?

5
Professional Practice Stakeholders
QAA
UNIVERSITIES
INDUSTRY
ACADEMIC
Narrowing the gap?
STUDENT
6
QAA

• Closing the Gap
• Benchmark Statement
• Demonstrate vocationally relevant managerial
  skills and knowledge by exposure to professional
  practice
• Placement Learning
• Short, extended, full-time, paid, unpaid,
  non-assessed, formal learning, experiential
  learning, studying or working abroad..provided
  they are tied into related learning outcomes

• Widening the Gap
• Loose interpretation for universities
• No blueprint for achieving this goal
• Result varied interpretation

7
Universities

• Closing the Gap
• CSU Universities UK Employability Report
  (2002)
• bolt on skills and lifelong learning
• Link to Professional Practice

• Widening the Gap
• Tension between vocational and academic demands
• Subject grouping /professional bodies
• Appropriateness of level
• Ability to reflect
• Wheres the bolt (hole) and wheres the learning?

8
Industry

• Closing the Gap
• Established professional bodies
• ILAM, ISRM, HCIMA
• Professional body for the managers of cultural
  and recreational provision in the UK
• Qualification and CPD routes

• Widening the Gap
• Industry diversity negates against a single
  professional body
• Generic output
• Specialist / technical skills requirements of the
  industry (level)
• Uptake on CPDs?

9
Academics

• Widening the Gap
• False hopes
• Interface problems
• Lack of clarity
• The leisure industry or the leisure profession?

• Closing the Gap
• QAA guidance
• Professional body developments
• LTSN co-ordination
• Accreditation systems
• Postgraduate developments

10
STUDENTS

• Closing the Gap
• Enhanced employability as graduates
• Student necessity to finance their way through
  their studies
• Employment opportunities

• Widening the Gap
• Extensive evidence of negative impact of
  part-time work on academic performance
• Mismatch between level of work
• Type of employment

11
Professional Practice Stakeholders
QAA
UNIVERSITIES
INDUSTRY
ACADEMIC
Widening the gap?
STUDENT
12
Concluding Remarks

• Knowledge and theory - ability to apply in
  practice
• Academic level
• Wide ranging industry
• Loose interpretation
• Employability is a property of the individual.
  In essence, core notion of employability relates
  to the propensity of graduates to obtain (and
  retain) fulfilling work (Hillage and Pollard,
  1998 Harvey 2001)
• HOW?