电大高职毕业生就业心理的调查与思考

通过调查问卷的方式,针对高职毕业生的就业态度、就业期望、就业技巧等方面进行调查统计与分析,发现目前高职毕业生在择业就业中存在的问题,提出相应的对策和建议,有利于学校对高职毕业生进行有针对性地就业指导,帮助毕业生更好地踏入社会,走上工作岗位。     

Is It worth Being ‘Traditional’ in An Era of Mass Individualization?

This article deals with the question of how the segmentation of higher education participation connects with the segmentation of the graduate labour market into jobs with different levels of quality. With data comprising educational and labour market histories of graduates with Master's degree from nine European countries, the author analyses how graduates with traditional higher education careers come off on the European labour market compared to those with non‐traditional educational careers. When examining the quality of the employment that graduates obtain early on in their career, three criteria are applicable: the job stability and the quality of the education‐job match to both the level of their studies and skills. The method used in the analysis is logistic regression. Results indicate that being a traditional/non‐traditional graduate does affect the odds of finding proper employment; however, whether the influence is positive or negative greatly varies with respect to gender; the number of graduates with the same type of educational career on the local market and the criteria used to evaluate the adequacy of the employment.     

Careers in the environment in Australia: surveying environmental jobs

Internationally, commentators have identified a growing demand for environmental expertise. Matching this has been an expansion in the range of environmental careers available to workers: from environment protection and bio‐physical areas, to local government operations, environmental auditing, assessment, and management. However, in Australia there is no overall picture of the types of jobs graduates in this sector have undertaken, which has limited the advice that can be given about environmental careers. To redress this situation a survey was conducted with 600 respondents working in the environment professions in Australia. The results identified a wide range of professional areas; these are grouped into 12 subcategories for three main environmental employment sectors: Environmental protection (19% of respondents), Conservation and preservation of natural resources (26%), Environmental Sustainability (55%). Respondents mainly had a bachelor‐level degree; however, a substantial proportion had an honours degree or postgraduate qualification. Respondents strongly recommended undertaking work experience to acquire key general skills that they identified as important for working in the environment sector. A related suggestion was for tertiary environmental courses to have a practical focus that produces ‘work‐ready’ students. Comparison with the situations in the UK, Canada and the USA and are also offered regarding the results and trends, and suggestions for further research.     

Academics’ perspectives of the teaching and development of generic employability skills in science curricula

ABSTRACT

Graduate employability is a key issue for higher education as new graduates face a highly competitive and rapidly changing employment sector. To maximise their likelihood of employment, graduates need to be able to demonstrate the skills and attributes most valued by employers. Employers, however, have long criticised the ability of graduates to contribute effectively to the workplace, especially due to a perceived lack of generic employability skills. This indicates a possible mismatch between the skills required by employers and those possessed by graduate applicants. This study addresses a gap in the scholarly literature regarding employability skills – the perspectives of science academics at an Australian and UK university regarding the promotion of generic employability skills in the subjects they teach. More specifically, this article discusses academics’ perspectives regarding: (a) which of the targeted generic skills were developed and assessed through their science units, and (b) the approaches used to promote the targeted skills and any associated challenges in employing those approaches. The discussion explores how shifting from traditional transmissive pedagogies to more problem-based approaches and embedding reflection into pedagogy and assessment practices would contribute to promoting the skills employers increasingly demand from science graduates.     

Developing generic skills at university,during work placement and in employment: graduates' perceptions

This paper presents findings from Stage 4 of the Griffith Graduate Project. Graduates from three Schools within Griffith University were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the contributions that the learning contexts of university, work placement and post‐graduation employment made to the development of their generic skills. All graduates involved in the project had experienced work placement as a formal part of their undergraduate studies. Supplementary data from focus group discussions held with employers and graduates are also included. Findings showed that while graduates recognized the contribution university had made to their generic skills development, they greatly valued the experience of learning in the workplace during placement and subsequently in employment. The importance of teamwork, being given responsibility, and collaborative learning emerged as the most important factors for effective learning in the three contexts under consideration.     

Doctorate holders outside the academy in Finland: academic engagement and industry-specific competence

In Finland, doctoral employment outside the academy has been increasing. Universities can no longer absorb the numbers in the doctoral labour force and research and development (R&D) policy emphasises the need for specialised research capacity in non-academic sectors; the highest academic degree is assumed to add value. However, the transition from doctoral programmes to employment outside the academy has been limited due to the social dynamics within labour markets. This article explores the careers of doctorate holders and the motives non-academic organisations have for recruiting such graduates. The data come from a survey of doctorate holders (N = 1183) and interviews with 26 employers. Based on the analysis, there was little place for doctorate holders outside the academy, except in R&D roles. When employed to undertake work outside R&D, they carried out special, demanding tasks or had a particular role related to their academic status. Professional functions such as those undertaken by medical doctors, engineers and teachers were the most common, but career patterns varied from one employment sector to the next. Employers considered industry-specific competence to be important, and the status of the doctoral degree and the membership in the academic community were expected to advance collaboration with universities and enhance the professional status of the organisations that hired doctoral graduates.     

No regrets? Measuring the career benefits of a psychology placement year

We report an analysis of whether a psychology placement provides significant benefit to graduates’ careers. Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey data six months post‐graduation suggested that placement programme graduates across the university are significantly more likely to be (1) in work and (2) in graduate‐level jobs. For psychology, the association between graduates’ placement status and employment status at the same time was not significant overall. However, when analyses were split by degree classification obtained, it was shown that amongst those graduates with 2.1 degrees reporting themselves as working, more placement vs. non‐placement programme graduates had obtained graduate‐level jobs (63% vs. 33%). In 2.2 classified graduates there was no significant association. This pattern persisted in the data from a survey of psychology alumni (from 18 months to six and a half years post‐graduation). Psychology placement programme alumni were also more satisfied with their careers. Although placement graduates earned marginally more, this difference did not reach statistical significance. This study was therefore able to show some measurable and persistent effects of a psychology placement year, although whether the benefits can be claimed to outweigh the costs is inconclusive. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.     

Diverse Expectations and Access to Opportunities: is there a Graduate Labour Market?

Restructuring of the labour market has led to changing demand for skills and concern about potential mismatch between needs of employers and competences developed in higher education courses. This paper extends analysis of the Great Expectations survey of UK final-year undergraduates in 1996 to explore the development of skills and competences in different disciplinary areas and the anticipated career trajectories of students. A detailed assessment is undertaken of the extent to which respondents appear prepared, both in terms of the employment-related skills they consider they have developed as undergraduates and in their expectations, for the changes which have taken place in the labour market in the latter part of the twentieth century. While findings from transitional early careers need to be interpreted cautiously, it does appear that expectations varied less than emerging outcomes for this cohort in the vanguard of mass higher education. Subject and gender differences in expectations and outcomes were significant and 'non-traditional' graduates were more likely than others to report that they were experiencing difficulties in the transition from education to employment. The graduates themselves had a flexible approach to the labour market but it seems that employers may have more inflexible recruitment graduate practices. Further research is required but there is clearly a danger that wider access may not lead to correspondingly wider career opportunities.     

Practice and conceptions: communicating mathematics in the workplace

The study examined the experience of communication in the workplace for mathematics graduates with a view to enriching university curriculum. I broaden the work of Burton and Morgan (2000), who investigated the discourse practices of academic mathematicians to examine the discourse used by new mathematics graduates in industry and their perceptions of how they acquired these skills. I describe the different levels of perception of discourse needs and of how they gained the necessary skills. At the lowest level, they learnt through trying out different approaches. At the next level, they were assisted by colleagues or outside situations. At the highest level, a small group viewed communication and interpersonal skills as a scientific process and stood back and used their “mathematical” observation skills to model their behaviour. These graduates did not appear to have systematically studied communication as part of their degree and they were unaware of the power of language choices in the workplace. Those who were working as mathematicians had to come to grips with explaining mathematical concepts to a wide range of people with varying mathematical skills but who generally were considerably less skilled in mathematics. The study revealed that these graduates were seriously underprepared in many aspects for joining the workforce. Many found it difficult to adapt to dealing with colleagues and managers, and developing communication skills was often a matter of trial and error.     

Uncovering important 21st-century skills for sustainable career development of social sciences graduates: A systematic review

BackgroundTeaching 21st-century skills is widely recognized as an important task of higher education. However, an overview of which skills students need to obtain a sustainable career is missing. Using the Framework for 21st Century Learning (P21, 2019a) and the model of sustainable careers (de Vos et al., 2020), we aimed to take stock of current knowledge on which 21st-century skills are considered important for social sciences students’ sustainable career development and how these skills contribute to their career sustainability.MethodsFor this systematic review, we searched EconLit, ERIC, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), PsycINFO, Scopus, Sociological Abstracts, and Web of Science on May 28, 2021. We selected peer-reviewed empirical articles that were published between 2003 and 2019 and addressed graduates' and employers' perspectives on the skills needed for social sciences graduates’ career sustainability. Twelve articles met all our selection criteria and were included for a thematic analysis after quality appraisal.ResultsThe included articles operationalized the career sustainability of social sciences graduates mostly in terms of finding a job and maintaining employment, to a lesser extent as high job performance, job satisfaction, and work engagement. Communication and problem solving skills were most frequently reported by both social sciences graduates and employers as crucial for a sustainable career. In addition, critical thinking, initiative and self-direction, and social and cross-cultural skills were also reported as important skills. None of the studies investigated mechanisms that would explain how these skills would exactly contribute to social science graduates’ career sustainability.DiscussionThe results of this review showed that studies to date have addressed only a limited number of career sustainability indicators. Moreover, explanatory mechanisms have largely been ignored. This is an important gap in the literature that future studies would need to address by building on the existing sustainable career development models.     

我国工程类毕业生就业现状调查分析

本文基于麦可思对2009届大学生毕业半年后就业状况的调查数据,从就业状态、就业质量、培养的工作能力、核心知识和求职等方面分析了我国工程类毕业生的就业状况。总体来讲,2009届工程类本科、高职毕业生的就业率与2008届基本持平,平均月薪略有提高,求职难度有所上升。我国工程类毕业生就业状况不仅可以反映高等工程教育的现状,还可以对高等工程教育的改革和发展研究提供定量的依据。     

Occupational Outcomes for Bachelor of Science Graduates in Australia and Implications for Undergraduate Science Curricula

Recent national reports have highlighted the contribution that the sciences make to the Australian economy. Many developed economies report perceived shortages of STEM qualified workers, and at the same time, many science graduates have difficulty in finding work, especially work in their discipline. Rational education design dictates that science curricula at all levels should be based on a realistic representation of the actual practice of science graduates. So where do Australian science graduates go postgraduation? Using the Australian national census data set, we present a focussed investigation into the occupational status of Australian science bachelor graduates, how this status varies with graduate age and gender, how this status varies between science degree specialisms and how this status compares to a range of other disciplines. We consider the implications of these findings for undergraduate science degree curriculum design. We find that Australian science bachelor graduates work in a wide range of occupations, and even immediately postgraduation, only a minority of science bachelor graduates are working in traditional science occupations. Occupational outcomes vary significantly between science degree specialisms. For a contemporary undergraduate science curriculum to reflect the occupational outcomes of science bachelor graduates, there is a balance required to ensure adequate technical preparation for those students who pursue a career in their discipline as science professionals and to also address the broader knowledge, skills and attitudes that will equip the majority of graduates from Australian science programs for successful employment, further education and active participation in their communities, using their science knowledge.     

Does a Management Degree Do the Business for Women in the Graduate Labour Market?

The increasing dominance of an economic ideology of higher education, that its principal role is to contribute to national competitiveness, has increased focus on the employability of graduates and their transition into the labour market. Drawing on a major study of the early career paths of 1995 graduates from 38 UK higher education institutions, this paper looks specifically at graduates from business and management programmes. Such graduates would apparently be attractive to employers seeking to recruit degree holders with specific transferable skills who might be expected to ‘hit the ground running’ once in organisations. The paper seeks to address the question of what effect holding a business degree has on the employment outcomes in comparison with other degree disciplines and whether or not there is any gender effect upon relative success in the labour market.     

Simulating the global workplace for graduate employability

Higher education institutions increasingly recognise the need to develop both disciplinary knowledge and soft skills to foster the employability of their graduates. For students in International Studies programmes, the workplace opportunities to develop soft skills relevant to their intended professions are scarce, costly and unavailable to many. This paper argues that universities can harness the power of ICTs in ways that students find engaging and offer opportunities to gain professional experience that prepares them for an international workplace. We describe a new work-integrated learning model that embeds a multi-layered in-person simulation within an academic context. Facilitated by cross-national pedagogical collaboration, students participate live in cross-campus experiential learning with online peers. Students’ reflections on the model indicate that this model can foster a range of generic soft skills that enable them to apply their academic knowledge, collaborate with a culturally diverse group and work in a digital world. To refine this blended learning model, more attention needs to be paid to designing appropriate evaluation tools and harnessing cultural diversity more effectively.     

从系统论观点谈高校就业指导工作

随着中国高等教育由精英教育向大众教育迈进,大学毕业生人数的剧增及就业难的问题对高校就业服务工作提出了严峻的挑战,在新形势下如何有效地开展就业指导工作是一个亟待研究的新课题。本文将采用系统论的基本原理,对高校就业指导工作系统的整体性、层次性、相关性、开放性等系统特性进行分析,提出如何运用系统论方法做好高校就业指导工作。     

高职院校计算机类专业毕业生跟踪调查与分析——以湖北工业职业技术学院为例

企业对计算机类专业毕业生的创新性、实践性、团队协作性要求较高,如何在教育实践中"坚持以服务为宗旨、以就业为导向系统培养技能型人才,在现代职业教育体系建设中发挥引领作用"是我们高职教育工作者要考虑的重点问题也是难点问题。本文对湖北某职业学院计算机类专业4届毕业生就业情况进行跟踪调查,对毕业生就业区域、毕业生对工作的满意度、工资水平、专业满意度、专业对口率、求职竞争力、就业单位对毕业生评价、就业单位对学院人才培养的建议等项目进行了统计分析。通过毕业生调查分析为高职院校计算机专业人才培养方案修订提供一定的参考依据,使课程设置更适合高职学生职业发展特点,更有利于培养学生的职业技能和综合素质。     

Developing sustainability-literate citizens through outdoor learning: possibilities for outdoor education in Higher Education

UNESCO's challenge to Higher Education institutions to provide educational leadership in sustainable development, provides an impetus to develop innovative, interdisciplinary curricula and pedagogy. Whereas Higher Education curricula in sustainability and sustainable development have tended to come from the environmental sciences, recent studies have highlighted the need for more holistic, experiential, interdisciplinary approaches. As a pedagogical approach, outdoor learning may have something to offer since it lends itself to holistic and experiential learning and enables integration of knowledge and skills from a range of discipline areas. Outdoor and environmental education research suggests that educational experiences in outdoor settings can be significant in developing environmental sensitivity and knowledge. Such knowledge and attitudes are components of ecological literacy and, more recently, sustainability literacy. This paper considers how outdoor experiential pedagogy might contribute to the current sustainability education agenda. It focuses on Higher Education since this sector has the obligation and the capability of instigating a 'ripple' effect' in developing sustainability-literate citizens. It discusses possibilities and issues arising from a review of outdoor, environmental and sustainability education literature, particularly, but not exclusively, from the UK. The paper is a precursor to an empirical study into how outdoor learning might contribute to the development of sustainability-literate graduates.     

高职法律英语专业社会需求调查分析

中国入世以来,对外贸易活动越来越频繁,这催生了对法律英语人才的迫切需求。然而,高职法律英语专业学生就业与社会需求却存在很大的差距。结合社会需求,高职法律英语专业应从课程设置、教学内容和手段、法律英语翻译技能强化训练等方面进行改革,提高法律英语专业学生的就业率。     

Labour Market Relevance of European University Education. From Enrolment to Professional Employment in 12 Countries

In accordance with the education policy which puts human capital at its heart, higher education is expected to produce marketable competent professionals in response to the needs of an expansive knowledge-based economy. In one reading, to support competitive knowledge-based economy, higher education students should graduate as young and fast as possible. The article asks whether it is credible that the young & fast principle as an objective for university education would provide a feasible way of enhancing professional labour force to serve knowledge economies. The analysis of study careers of 17,000 European second cycle university graduates shows that transitions from school to higher education to professional employment vary considerably in the 12 countries. The key finding is that countries with rather slow progression in the initial part of the transition tend to do better in the end, and vice versa. Belgium (Flanders) is the most obvious example of young and fast-graduating students that need a relatively long period after graduation to start their professional careers. In Finland, Austria, and Norway, relatively old and experienced graduates are employed rapidly. The time before professional employment after graduation is short for students who have acquired relevant work experience and acquainted themselves with professional fields. The youngest professionals are found in France where they tend to have access to opportunities for professionally relevant training. However, professional employment cannot be fostered by simply trying to recruit student populations as young as possible, but rather by enriching the labour market relevance of their student careers.