LEARNING THROUGH WORK PLACEMENTS AND BEYOND

Brenda Little and Lee Harvey

July, 2006

A report for HECSU and the HigherEducationAcademy’s Work Placements

Organisation Forum

The overall aims of the study were to:

• investigate students’ perceptions of learning from placements (planned as part of the undergraduate curriculum);

• explore how values and ethical positions are developed on placement;

• investigate the extent to which students try to transfer and build on such learning in subsequent stages of the taught curriculum.

The study is based on face-to-face semi-structured interviews with students who had recently returned from a period of work experience. A total of 82 students took part and interviews were recorded and transcribed.