ENHANCING EMPLOYABILITY: TRANSFORMING STUDENTS PERCEPTION OF THE CONCEPT OF AN 'EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONAL’

Anesa Hosein, Namrata Rao and Pat Hughes

OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION

Destinations/ Employability of Education Studies Graduate at Liverpool Hope University

Background of the Study Methods of Data Collection Preliminary Results Conclusions Where Next?

LHU ED. STUDIES GRADUATE DESTINATION (2008/2009)

Destination PercentageUnemployed 6%Studying Only 19%Working & Studying 15%Working Only 56%Total 96%

Less than 35% go onto study, of which 19% are study only

The 19% study only would include those who probably go onto do a PGCE

LHU EDUCATION STUDIES GRADUATE JOBS (2008/2009)

  Graduate job

Non-graduate job

Liverpool Hope 28% 72%

No. Of Universities (> 60%)

7 35

Total Universities   42

Most of the graduates work in the non-graduate sector

However, in 35 other universities over 60% of their graduates in Ed. Studies degrees also go onto to do non-graduate work

LHU ED. STUDIES EMPLOYMENTLiverpool Hope F/T P/TCaring personal service occupations 58% 50%Teaching professionals 13% 20%Social welfare associate professionals 6% 10%Sales assistants and retail cashiers 5%Elementary occupations 3%Customer service occupations 2%Secretarial and related occupations 1%Health associate professionals 1%Public service professionals 1% 5%Public service and other associate professionals 1%Admin. occupations: Gov’t and related 5%Total 91% 90%

BACKGROUND OF STUDY

The challenge: Students on an Education Studies programme

see mainly one end job (our belief!): To become a teacher

Purpose: enhance employability of these Education Studies students

Method: Through one of the courses here at Hope: Educational Professional course Raise awareness of different job prospects within

the field of education Help to cultivate an attitude of thinking about

possible different jobs and their requirements

BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Students take this course in their 2nd Year The purpose of the course is to:

Enhancing the awareness of the different professions within education

Roles: teachers, education and training in the community, and the wider children’s workforce, life-long learning

A push to creating a personal development plan

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS

At the beginning of the course, students are required to: Create/ update their curriculum vitae Prepare an action or personal development plan Optional: Look at job profiles on the internet or

newspapers Lecture on creating and keeping a reflective

journal

LECTURES IN EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONAL

Lectures designed to raise awareness of possible employment opportunities within the education sector:

Course Lectures Role of teachers: primary and secondary Role of teaching assistant and learning mentors Extended school services

External Lectures/ Activities Museum Education Further Education Prison Education Family and Community Education

PURPOSE OF STUDY

To ascertain what are the career choices of students on the Educational Professional course

To ascertain how they view an Educational Professional i.e. Do the students mainly view an educational

professional as someone who is a teacher? If so, to modify their view of an educational

professional in order to consider other career options

DEFINITION OF AN EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONAL

This presentation takes and extends the definition of an educational professional from Hughes (2009)

An educational professional is defined as any person who has a role and responsibility with working with children in schools and adults in life long educational settings.

These roles may be multi-professional (e.g. health officer, police officer) as well as multi-agency (e.g. health trusts, police force).

STUDY

Two Phases Phase 1: Longitudinal Survey (completed)

Survey 1: Beginning of the academic year Survey 2: End of the academic year

Phase 2: Interviews (to start)

STUDY METHODS: SURVEY 1

Beginning of the course, Education Professional: students filled in a questionnaire.

Students were asked three questions: What job or career (or other activity) are you

planning on pursuing at the end of your degree? Why this job or career (or activity)? What is your idea of an educational professional?

SURVEY 2: END OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR

End of the academic year Filled in the questionnaire with the same

three questions Additional set of questions on international

and cultural perspectives of an educational professional

PRELIMINARY RESULTS: SURVEY 1

Educational Professional Class 74 female students: 71% 30 male students: 29%

78 responses (approximately: 75% response rate) 63 female students: 81% 15 male students: 19%

69 (88%) of the respondents indicated they were considering a job in teaching or becoming a teacher Of which 32 (46%) specifically indicated they

wanted to become a primary school teacher Of which 6 (19%) of these were male students

SURVEY 2

42 responses (response rate: 40%) 36 female students (86%) 6 male students (14%)

27 (64%) of the respondents indicated they were considering a job in teaching Of which 11 (41%) specifically indicated they

wanted to work in primary education Of which 2 (18%) were male students

MATCHED SURVEY

This presentation concentrates on the matched survey

39 students answered the questionnaire twice 34 female students 5 male students

36 of these indicated a desire to teach in Survey 1

26 of these indicated a desire to teach in Survey 2

DEFINITIONS OF EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONAL (PRELIMINARY)

Definitions were coded as follow (one definition could be coded twice): Teacher Skills Qualification Generic Staff Identification Other

Purpose Payment Unclear

TEACHER DEFINITION

This was a definition oriented towards a teaching metaphor i.e. Information transfer

“An individual who has the skills to teach others and pass on their knowledge to other people” F, 20

“Somebody who understand peoples' learning needs that use a range of teaching methods” F, 20

GENERIC DEFINITION

This definition is more in keeping with the definition used in this presentation – i.e. Someone who works in an educational setting being multi-professional and multi-agency

“A person whose role includes working with children and young people to support learning in everyday life” F, 23

“Educational Professional as seen as someone who is employed in or school-based environment or someone who works in partnership with schools” F, 21

QUALIFICATIONS DEFINITION

This definition relates to the need of someone having earned a degree or certificate i.e. a qualification to be an educational professional

“Someone who is qualified in some area of education ... This can be in or outside of an education setting”, F, 20

“An individual with a degree or certificate working in a career with educational roles e.g. Police, teacher, nurse” F, 20

STAFF IDENTIFICATION

This is a list of possible educational professional jobs rather than a definition

“Teacher, TA, Ed Psyc, Admin staff, medical staff in school, social workers, school governors etc” F, 21

“Someone who teaches and encourages all aspects of learning, including current and life long. I also think this includes those who contribute anything towards education; officers; mentor etc.” F, 20 (also teacher definition)

SKILLS DEFINITION

This definition indicated the type of skills that an educational professional should have or a referral to the educational professional needing skills

“Well conducted (?) / good role model. Considerate to individual needs. Polite/ Well spoken” M, 20

“Educational professional is an individual that has the skills and knowledge to help and influence people” F, 19

DEFINITIONS

20 of the students were considered to have given a similar definition from the beginning of the year to the end of the year Survey 1: “Someone who works within the school

environment, aiding a child's progression” Survey 2: “Anyone who has contact with a school

in an education context” F, 27, Generic definitions

DEFINITIONS

18 of the students gave improved definitions: Survey 1: “Everyone from teacher, tutor, admin

staff, who has contact with a student or a students' work day”

Survey 2: “Someone that works with an individual, family or school to help improve the quality of education, to improve their ideas of education. To improve attainment of not only children but parents and other adults too. To cross barriers that people may face.” F, 28 (Staff identification to generic definition)

NUMBER OF DEFINITIONS

Definitions Survey 1 Survey 2 Total

Teacher 12 1 13

Skills 2 1 3

Qualifications 8 2 10

Generic 14 34 48

Staff Identification 2 1 3

Other 2 2 4

Total 40 41 81

CHANGING IDEA OF AN EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONAL

The number of “teacher definitions” had fallen from Survey 1 (12) to Survey 2 (1)

The number of “generic definitions” had increased from Survey 1 (14) to Survey 2 (34)

But did this changing idea of an educational professional transform what students were thinking about in terms of their prospective careers?

JOBS

29 of the students in Survey 1 still indicated that they would like to do the same job by the end of Survey 2

26 of these students who wanted to teach in Survey 1 were still considering to teach Of which 3 were considering teaching but

something else as well 8 students were no longer consider entering

the teaching profession Learning mentors, social workers, prison

education, foster care, play therapists, speech therapists

WHY THE CHANGE?

Understanding the job description “After learning the job description I realised I

wanted to go into this profession” F, 19 (Learning Mentor)

Mixing interests “I have always wanted to teach but since leaving

school, I wanted to join the police and this is my way of combining them. I am serious about this as a career” F, 20 (Prison Education)

“Lots of what we did this year has made me question what I want to do. Speech and Language/ Prison Education interests me alot” F, 21 (Teaching/ Speech and Language/ Prison Education)

WHY THE CHANGE?

Non direct educational setting “Because I am interested in working with

children but in a non-educational capacity” F, 20 (Play Therapist)

“Would like to work with families to improve their children's education and attainment”, F, 28 (Family Mentor)

CONCLUSIONS

A majority of students are considering a profession in teaching

Considering the limited number of PGCE places they will be disappointed

Changing their concept of an educational professional, providing knowledge of other jobs and their requirements can probably help them align themselves better in the job market and avoid disappointment

Additionally, be able to show them how they can combine a number of their different interests

WHERE NEXT?

Interview students considering the teaching profession to investigate what other jobs they are considering if they do not get their first choice

Determine from interviews whether the choice of these different education professional jobs have made them more open to considering a non-teacher education job

Determine whether the creation of their curriculum vitae and personal development plans got them thinking about their different job prospects

Investigate why some students change/ not change their choice of job career