Call for participation – Work Integrated Learning academic and professional staff survey
Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is an essential aspect of many courses at the ANU, but there are barriers for some students to be able to engage in WIL programs. These barriers are not limited to disability and include a broad range of issues that stem from both institutional practices and individual student circumstances (Lawlis et al., 2023; Moore et al., 2015).
Previous research (Itano-Boase et al., 2021) found that there was an in-built “sorting mechanism” within WIL programs and that might be systematically excluding students from diverse groups. While it is the responsibility of the university to facilitate accessible, inclusive and equitable WIL programs for students, there is a significant impact in terms of time and cost for university staff to facilitate appropriate and individualised supports to enable participation from all students (Bulk et al., 2023).
We are seeking the insights of ANU academic and professional staff who support WIL programs. The goal of this research is to highlight strengths in current practices and to co-design strategies that can support ANU staff to facilitate more accessible, inclusive and equitable WIL programs.
To participate, click on the link to access the survey.
This project is supported by an ANU Strategic Learning and Teaching grant and has ethics approval from the ANU ethics committee (H/2023/1303).
April 2024
Project team Dr Anne Ozdowska, Associate Professor Penny Kyburz and Professor Ying-Yi Chih
References
Bulk, L. Y., Franks, A., Stephens, L., Smith, H., Baljko, M., Dadashi, N., & Epstein, I. (2023). The invisible work of co-creating disability access in work integrated learning. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 0123456789. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-023-10216-z.
Itano-Boase, M., Wijesingha, R., Cukier, W., Latif, R., & Hon, H. (2021). Exploring diversity and inclusion in work-integrated learning: An ecological model approach. International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, 22(3), 253–269.
Lawlis, T., Mawer, T., Andrew, L., & Bevitt, T. (2023). Challenges to delivering university health-based work-integrated learning to students with a disability: a scoping review. Higher Education Research and Development, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2023.2228209.
Moore, K., Campbell, M., Winchester-Seeto, T., Ferns, S., & Mackaway, J. (2015). Building institutional capacity to enhance access, participation and progression in WIL Building institutional capacity to enhance access participation and progression in Work Integrated Learning (WIL). www.acen.edu.au/access-participation-progression/.
Stirling, A., Milne, A., Taylor, A., & Goldman, A. (2021). Understanding barriers to engagement in an unpaid field placement: Applying the transtheoretical stages of behavior change model. International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, 22(3), 271–286.