Supporting Critical Reflection of Professional Practice Competencies within a Work-Integrated Learning Course

Abstract

BACKGROUND The Industry Affiliates Program (IAP) is a Work-Integrated Learning (WiL) course which is available to students enrolled in degree programs within the Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology (SEET) group at Griffith University. The IAP course integrates both undergraduate and postgraduate students into the workplace by providing the opportunity for students to develop "work-ready" skills through the completion of an industry based project designed to deliver meaningful outcomes for both students and industry partners. Assessment includes both scholarly assessment based on the technical aspects of the project undertaken and critical reflection of the development of professional practice competency. The critical reflection of this competency has been implemented through a structured professional practice report, which has been modelled on the Engineers Australia Stage 2 competencies. The structured professional practice report asks students to explicitly address a set of defining activities, which form elements within the professional practice competency. PURPOSE The objectives of this research project are to i) identify the efficacy of the professional practice report as a means of assessing the students' development of their professional practice competency while undertaking their WiL project and; ii) investigate the effectiveness of the resources that have been provided to students in the preparation of the report. DESIGN/METHOD The research project included an anonymous survey questionnaire of engineering students who undertook the IAP course in semester 1, 2012, to investigate their perceptions of the assessment process related to the professional practice competency that students have been asked to describe. The survey questionnaire asked students to provide demographic information on themselves plus their responses to a set of eight (8) statements relating to their perceptions of the professional practice competency assessment item, using a five point Lickert type scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. The results of the data were statistically analysed to identify student perceptions of the professional practice competency assessment and the resources provided. RESULTS The project results have identified that the professional practice report is a valuable component of the IAP course assessment and that the structure of the report helped students to describe their professional practice competency. The students identified that the narrative style of the report and the template made it easy for them to reflect on this competency. However, there was no statistical significance between the responses reported from different demographic groups within the cohort, except for students with prior work experience who found the electronic resources more useful than those with less prior work experience. Also, students who undertook internal projects reported that the workshops were more useful than students who undertook an external industry project. CONCLUSIONS The current study has identified that the development of a professional practice competency by students within a WiL course is an essential component of the assessment process. Although engineering students find the production of the narrative within the professional practice report challenging, the structured nature of the elements and defining activities helped students in the identification and articulation of the professional practice competency they have developed as part of the IAP project.