The Psychology of Graduate Employability – Development of The Graduate Employability Indicator

A PhD research project by Saffron Passam

Supervised by Professor Kate Bullen & Professor John GrattanFunded by the Mike Baker Doctoral Programme

The Higher Education Context

Employability is :

Key educational outcome

Measured

Comparable

Higher Education Statistics Agency (2013)

What are the problems?

• What is it? If anything?• What should we call it?• How do we develop it?• Who is responsible for

encouraging it?• Can we measure it?

Students are under pressure to develop sophisticated employability profiles to meet the demands of a complex labour market.

Graduate Employability Indicator

• Is there a relationship between aspects of self-regulated learning and employability development?

• Can a screening tool identify students at risk of dis-engagement with employability?

• What are the most effective curriculum strategies?

Graduate Employability Indicator

Self-Regulated Learning

Meta-cognition Motivation

Self-efficacy Epistemology

Cognition

Guiding goal-directed activities over time

Our world viewThinking we can do something

Thinking about our thinking

Schraw, Crippen, & Hartley (2006)

Employability Indicator

Technical Awareness

Communication Awareness

Commercial Awareness

Project Awareness

Ethical Awareness

(Very) Provisional Results

203 students participated (aged 18-21) mixed gender, nationality, HEI, and discipline.

Top 5 skills the students rated themselves as having least experience of in comparison to peers• Awareness of profitability• Awareness of quality control processes• Awareness of risk management• Using database software• Being creative about problems

(Very) Provisional Results

• Moderate to strong correlation between knowledge of cognition regulation of cognition

• Weak to moderate positive correlation between meta-cognition, self-efficacy ,work self-efficacy and GEI simple t(200)=.907,p<0.05..

• No significant difference between typical student work and GEI simple.

• Significant difference between graduate-type work experience and GEI simple t(201)=2.5,<0.05.

Can you help?

www.graduate-employability.co.uk

Email: sfp9@aber.ac.uk

ReferencesRees, C., Forbes, P., & Keble, B. (2006). Student employability profiles. The Higher Education Academy, York.

Schraw, G., Crippen, K. J., & Hartley, K. (2006). Promoting self-regulation in science education: Metacognition as part of a broader perspective on learning. Research in Science Education, 36(1-2), 111-139.

Image credits to flickr ralph and jenny