In situ and in the curriculum: towards an integrative approach to work-based learning pedagogy

This paper explores the value of a simulated business world to enhancing students’ employability skills. The Venture Matrix learning environment is seen as an alternative or supplementary model to traditional work-based learning opportunities such as placements, paid and unpaid or voluntary work and aspects of these more traditional models are taken as comparison points from the work-based learning research literature. The Venture Matrix was introduced to a cohort of learners on business and technology courses at higher education level. Learners in all three years of a traditional full-time course were introduced to the Venture Matrix learning environment. A total of 49 survey questionnaire responses were collected from students and 17 students took part in focus group interviews. The student experiences of working and learning within the Venture Matrix interactive trading estate are explored, allowing the student voice to inform our understanding of the value of this approach to enhancing their transferable skills. While the research itself focuses on curriculum enhancement, this paper further explores how this alternative model of engaging students in work-based learning contributes with unique added value to the learning and teaching of employability in higher education. The strengths and weaknesses of the approach are discussed in order to advise further improvement and integration in the curriculum. The relationship of the learning environment to the discovery or exploratory model of learning theory is discussed. The effects of having an experience which is unrealistic on students’ engagement with the subject is explored and finally the strengths of the simulated curriculum-based approach in providing opportunities for interdependent ways of working are discussed, particularly with relationship to the self-reliance and management skills which they develop in learners.

Published abstract. Show less