Preparing sport graduates for employment: satisfying employers expectations

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore from an employer’s perspective the skills, attributes, and capabilities required of a sports graduate, whilst also discovering how a student is expected to demonstrate these skills in the context of a sports organisation. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a qualitative interpretive case study approach through the use of face to face interviews with six employers from sports organisations involved in the delivery of sport. Interviews lasted between 30-42 minutes and were recorded. This was followed by a thematic review to allow for common themes to be selected and represented. The results were then reviewed and evaluated by a further 15 industry professionals and sports educators. Findings The results suggest employers seek skills that are characteristically enterprise/ entrepreneurship skills, together with an articulation of a ‘sports graduate’ mind-set. This mind-set is described by the employers as being something which is demonstrated through a combination of behaviours and attributes. The paper concluded that in the classroom the use of case studies and challenges where students have to respond to and solve problems by the very nature of the activity is optimal. Originality/Value The originality of this paper lies in both the context of study and the integration of enterprise and entrepreneurship skills that are needed for the changing world of work in sport. The value of the papers is in both the employer’s description of the graduate mind-set and also examples of how the skills can be applied in the context of sport

Monitoring the newly qualified nurses in Sweden: the Longitudinal Analysis of Nursing Education (LANE) study

BACKGROUND: The Longitudinal Analysis of Nursing Education (LANE) study was initiated in 2002, with the aim of longitudinally examining a wide variety of individual and work-related variables related to psychological and physical health, as well as rates of employee and occupational turnover, and professional development among nursing students in the process of becoming registered nurses and entering working life. The aim of this paper is to present the LANE study, to estimate representativeness and analyse response rates over time, and also to describe common career pathways and life transitions during the first years of working life. METHODS: Three Swedish national cohorts of nursing students on university degree programmes were recruited to constitute the cohorts. Of 6138 students who were eligible for participation, a total of 4316 consented to participate and responded at baseline (response rate 70%). The cohorts will be followed prospectively for at least three years of their working life. RESULTS: Sociodemographic data in the cohorts were found to be close to population data, as point estimates only differed by 0-3% from population values. Response rates were found to decline somewhat across time, and this decrease was present in all analysed subgroups. During the first year after graduation, nearly all participants had qualified as nurses and had later also held nursing positions. The most common reason for not working was due to maternity leave. About 10% of the cohorts who graduated in 2002 and 2004 intended to leave the profession one year after graduating, and among those who graduated in 2006 the figure was almost twice as high. Intention to leave the profession was more common among young nurses. In the cohort who graduated in 2002, nearly every fifth registered nurse continued to further higher educational training within the health professions. Moreover, in this cohort, about 2% of the participants had left the nursing profession five years after graduating. CONCLUSION: Both high response rates and professional retention imply a potential for a thorough analysis of professional practice and occupational health

Plugging a hole and lightening the burden: A process evaluation of a practice education team

Aim: To investigate the perceptions of clinical and senior managers about the role of Practice Educators employed in one acute hospital in the UK. Background: Producing nurses who are fit for practice, purpose and academic award is a key issue for nurse education partnership providers in the UK. Various new models for practice learning support structures and new roles within health care institutions have been established. To sustain funding and policy support for these models, there is a need for evaluation research. Design: A process evaluation methodology was employed to determine the current value of a practice education team and to provide information to guide future direction. Methods: Data were collected through semi-structured telephone interviews using a previously designed schedule. All senior nurse managers (N=5) and a purposive sample of clinical managers (n=13) who had personal experience of and perceptions about the role of practice educators provided the data. Interview notes were transcribed, coded and a thematic framework devised to present the results. Results: A number of key themes emerged including: qualities needed for being a successful practice educator; visibility and presence of practice educators; providing a link with the university; ‘plugging a hole’ in supporting learning needs; providing relief to practitioners in dealing with ‘the burden of students’; alleviating the ‘plight of students’; and effects on student attrition. Conclusions: Findings provided evidence for the continued funding of the practice educator role with improvements to be made in dealing with stakeholder expectations and outcomes. Relevance to clinical practice: In the UK, there still remain concerns about the fitness for practice of newly registered nurses, prompting a recent national consultation by the professional regulating body. Despite fiscal pressures, recommendations for further strengthening of all systems that will support the quality of practice learning may continue to sustain practice learning support roles

Prescription for nursing informatics in pre-registration nurse education.

Nurses need to be able to use information and communications technology not only to support their own practice, but also to help their patients make best use of it. This article argues that nurses are not currently adequately prepared to work with information and technology through their pre-registration education. Reflecting the lack of nursing informatics expertise, it is recommended that all pre-registration nursing programmes should have access to a nursing informatics specialist. A prescription to meet the informatics needs of the newly qualified nurse is proposed. This places the areas that need to be included in pre-registration education into broad groups that both articulate the competencies that nurses need to develop, and indicate why they are needed, rather than providing context-free checklists of skills. This is presented as a binary scatter chart with two axes, skill to knowledge and technology to information

Competencies for food graduate careers: developing a language tool

Unlike many other graduate career pathways in the UK, the food industry does not have a cohesive competency framework to support employers, students and degree providers. Food sciences-based technical graduates are a significant proportion of the industry’s graduate intake; this study aims to provide such a framework. Initial work involving a sample of representative stakeholders has created a list of typical attributes and associated definitions that may be desirable in food sciences graduates. Material was gathered by semi-structured qualitative interviews and analysed by thematic analysis followed by a modified Delphi technique. The resulting framework is tailored to needs and terminology prevalent in food industry employment. The process employed could be utilised for building other vocational graduate competency frameworks. Further plans include using the framework to ascertain the important elements for typical graduate entry roles, better informing students about desirable qualities and supporting future competency-based curriculum review

Social inclusion and valued roles : a supportive framework

The aim of this paper is to examine the concepts of social exclusion, social inclusion and their relevance to health, well-being and valued social roles. The article presents a framework, based on Social Role Valorization (SRV), which was developed initially to support and sustain socially valued roles for those who are, or are at risk of, being devalued within our society. The framework incorporates these principles and can be used by health professionals across a range of practice, as a legitimate starting point from which to support the acquisition of socially valued roles which are integral to inclusio

Compliance or pragmatism: How do academics deal with managerialism in higher education? A comparative study in three countries

Universities throughout Europe have adopted organisational strategies, structures, technologies, management instruments and values that are commonly found in the private sector. While these alleged managerial measures may be considered useful, and have a positive effect on the quality of teaching and research, there is also evidence of detrimental effects on primary tasks. The consequences of such managerial measures were investigated through 48 interviews with staff members at 10 universities in the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. The results were analysed and interpreted within the framework of institutional and professional theory, by linking them to three central themes: 'symbolic compliance', 'professional pragmatism' and 'formal instrumentality'. These themes explain why and how the respondents dissociated themselves from the managerial measures imposed upon them. This occurred often for pragmatic and occasionally for principled reasons. © 2012 Society for Research into Higher Education

Becoming a special educator – Finnish and Swedish students' views of their future profession

Peer reviewe

Spotlight on equality of employment opportunities : a qualitative study of job seeking experiences of graduating nurses and physiotherapists from black and minority ethnic backgrounds

There is growing attention in the UK and internationally to the representation of black and minority ethnic groups in healthcare education and the workplace. Although the NHS workforce is very diverse, ethnic minorities are unevenly spread across occupations, and considerably underrepresented in senior positions. Previous research has highlighted that this inequality also exists at junior levels with newly qualified nurses from non-White/British ethnic groups being less likely to get a job at graduation than their White/British colleagues. Although there is better national data on the scale of inequalities in the healthcare workforce, there is a gap in our understanding about the experience of job seeking, and the factors that influence disadvantage in nursing and other professions such as physiotherapy. This qualitative study seeks to fill that gap and explores the experience of student nurses (n=12) and physiotherapists (n=6) throughout their education and during the first 6-months post qualification to identify key experiences and milestones relating to successful employment particularly focusing on the perspectives from different ethnic groups. Participants were purposively sampled from one university to ensure diversity in ethnic group, age and gender. Using a phenomenological approach, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted at course completion and 6 months later. Two main themes were identified. The 'proactive self' ('It's up to me') theme included perceptions of employment success being due to student proactivity and resilience; qualities valued by employers. The second theme described the need to 'fit in' with organisational culture. Graduates described accommodating strategies where they modified aspects of their identity (clothing, cultural markers) to fit in. At one extreme, rather than fitting in, participants from minority ethnic backgrounds avoided applying to certain hospitals due to perceptions of discriminatory cultures, 'I wouldn't apply there 'cos you know, it's not really an ethnic hospital'. In contrast, some participants recognised that other graduates (usually white) did not need to change and aspects of their identity brought unsolicited rewards 'if your face fits then the barriers are reduced'. The findings indicate that success in getting work is perceived as determined by individual factors, and fitting in is enabled by strategies adopted by the individual rather than the workplace. Demands for change are more acute for graduates from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. This is an issue for healthcare organisations seeking to be inclusive and challenges employers and educators to acknowledge inequalities and take action to address them. BACKGROUND AIM PARTICIPANTS METHODS RESULTS CONCLUSION