Student mentoring to enhance graduates’ employability potential

This paper considers whether the adoption of a subject-specific, classroom-based, voluntary extra-curricular student mentoring scheme could provide an effective mechanism and andragogic approach to enhance higher education students’ employability potential pre-graduation.Over the three-year pilot, 26 more advanced (second to fourth year) undergraduate students actively mentored nearly 400 first year undergraduate students during workshops delivered annually within forensic and policing focused courses. In total, 17 mentors anonymously completed online, post-scheme surveys. Survey data was quantitatively analysed to evaluate the scheme, establish which skills and attributes mentors had developed and investigate whether mentors could appropriately identify example skills within professional terminology used during employer recruitment. In addition, this paper reflects on the implementation of remote student mentoring during the COVID-19 pandemic and its adoption within a blended learning framework.The results from this research strongly support mentoring as an effective mechanism to develop undergraduate employability skills, significantly developing mentors’ self-confidence and self-efficacy in their interpersonal and communication skills. Although mentors were aware of university graduate attributes and thought they could evidence these with appropriate examples, in practice this was not necessarily the case. As a result, a framework is proposed to enable mentors to identify their skills and how they may align with competencies sought by relevant forensic and policing employers. However, other andragogic practices may need to be implemented to maximise the potential for successful graduate employment.     

Embedding employability skills for the legal professionals of the future

This article provides a case study on embedding employability skills into law courses at one higher education institution. The aim of the project was to further embed employability skills within curriculum delivery as part of a holistic student skills development strategy. The authors used the four-stage process, suggested by the Higher Education Academy’s Framework on Embedding Employability in Higher Education to design the project: defining employability, reviewing and mapping current employability skills, prioritising actions and measuring impact. The authors draw out three ways in which the project has wider potential relevance. From an educational theory perspective, the project represents a way to embed employability skills in a Framework for Higher Education Qualifications level appropriate way, through reference to Biggs’ taxonomy of learning. For higher education institutions, the project is particularly topical in light of the rapidly changing regulatory landscape that is becoming increasingly skills focused in nature. It is suggested that embedding employability in law courses now will assist future institutional engagement with the potentially new route to qualifying as a solicitor through the Solicitors Qualifying Examination. Individual law teachers also reported benefits to embedding employability skills in tutorial sessions from a classroom management perspective.     

基于可雇佣性的《管理学原理》教学改革实践

近年来,大学生就业形势日益严峻,基于可雇用性的教学改革引起了高校的重视。项目组通过跨校合作,针对《管理学原理》课程的特点,结合可雇佣性的要求,对《管理学原理》的教学在案例库设计、课堂讨论、考核方式以及创新能力培养等方面进行了改革。