Integrating employability skills into the business curriculum

© 2017 Dr Valeria Stella Cotronei-BairdThe development of employability skills is an important graduate outcome of most contemporary university degrees. Given the critical role of academics to teach and assess curriculum, academics are held responsible for furthering the employability skills development of university graduates. Yet little is known about the extent to which academics consider graduate employability skills to be an important aspect of the academic role, and the factors that influence academics’ teaching and assessment of employability skills. This study has investigated to what extent academics integrate employability skills into the university business curriculum. Based on the Theories of Action Framework, this research investigated academics’ beliefs and self-reported practices and compared these to their actual teaching and assessment practices. Qualitative data were collected through interviews with academics and content analysis of curriculum documents was conducted to investigate beliefs and self-reported practices. The data, drawn from direct observation of teaching and assessment practices and follow-up interviews, were analysed to investigate actual teaching and assessment practices to learn about the factors that influence the teaching and assessment of employability skills. The findings demonstrate that academics hold a common understanding of employability skills, and acknowledge that the skills are an important part of teaching and assessment practice. However, employability skills are not systematically and consistently integrated in teaching and assessment practice. The disjuncture between beliefs and practice can be explained by the individual nature of teaching and assessment practice that is influenced by the academic discipline and a number of contextual and external factors. As such, academics face a number of competing challenges, constraints and demands within the scope of their practice that impede the consistent and systematic integration of employability skills within the business curriculum. In terms of contribution, the study has conceptualised a typology for identifying gaps in employability skills integration in the curriculum to address the graduate skills gap identified by industry and to ameliorate the incongruence between what academics want to do and what they actually do in practice. The study argues that universities need to recognise the complexity of academic work within their disciplinary boundaries. This recognition is important if universities seek to foster greater integration of employability skills development in the university curriculum by the academics who are directly involved in curriculum design, delivery, and assessment