How do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? A review of their websites

Employability development is a strategic priority for universities across advanced western economies. Despite this, there is no systematic study of employability development approaches internationally. In this study, we considered how universities portray employability on the public pages of their...

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Main Authors: Bennett, Dawn, Knight, E., Divan, A., Kuchel, L., Horn, J., van Reyk, D., da Silva, K.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Sage Publications 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59293
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author Bennett, Dawn
Knight, E.
Divan, A.
Kuchel, L.
Horn, J.
van Reyk, D.
da Silva, K.
author_facet Bennett, Dawn
Knight, E.
Divan, A.
Kuchel, L.
Horn, J.
van Reyk, D.
da Silva, K.
author_sort Bennett, Dawn
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Employability development is a strategic priority for universities across advanced western economies. Despite this, there is no systematic study of employability development approaches internationally. In this study, we considered how universities portray employability on the public pages of their websites. We undertook website content analysis of 107 research-intensive universities in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Following Farenga and Quinlan, we classified these strategies as Portfolio, Hands-off, Award and Non-embedded. Portfolio or Award strategies were the most common across all four locations; Hands-off and Non-embedded strategies were more common to US universities; and Award was more common in the United Kingdom. Universities focused on either possessional or positional approaches to employability. We advocate for a pedagogical shift towards processual approaches in which responsibility for employability development is shared.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2017
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-592932018-03-05T08:41:02Z How do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? A review of their websites Bennett, Dawn Knight, E. Divan, A. Kuchel, L. Horn, J. van Reyk, D. da Silva, K. Employability development is a strategic priority for universities across advanced western economies. Despite this, there is no systematic study of employability development approaches internationally. In this study, we considered how universities portray employability on the public pages of their websites. We undertook website content analysis of 107 research-intensive universities in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Following Farenga and Quinlan, we classified these strategies as Portfolio, Hands-off, Award and Non-embedded. Portfolio or Award strategies were the most common across all four locations; Hands-off and Non-embedded strategies were more common to US universities; and Award was more common in the United Kingdom. Universities focused on either possessional or positional approaches to employability. We advocate for a pedagogical shift towards processual approaches in which responsibility for employability development is shared. 2017 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59293 10.1177/1038416217714475 Sage Publications fulltext
spellingShingle Bennett, Dawn
Knight, E.
Divan, A.
Kuchel, L.
Horn, J.
van Reyk, D.
da Silva, K.
How do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? A review of their websites
title How do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? A review of their websites
title_full How do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? A review of their websites
title_fullStr How do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? A review of their websites
title_full_unstemmed How do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? A review of their websites
title_short How do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? A review of their websites
title_sort how do research-intensive universities portray employability strategies? a review of their websites
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59293