Student-led employer-focused extra-curricular activity: a method of enhancing employability skills at Imperial College London and Loughborough University

Lamb, Fiona M.; Perkin, Glynis; Ahearn, Alison

doi:10.11120/ened.2012.07010030

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…These activities include student-led activities, which involve groups of students starting and running a project on their own. In this case, the project is usually related to a specific degree/discipline, where academics and other professionals generally offer advice and support, although students are responsible for carrying out and ensuring the success of the activity (Lamb et al , 2012). Examples of these types of initiatives are participation in student clubs, sports, non-profit organisations and JEs.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of junior enterprises in the development of students' entrepreneurial skills

Daniel¹,

Almeida

2020

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PurposeThis study assesses the effects of junior enterprises (JEs) on the entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of engineering higher education students, compared to a group of social sciences students.Design/methodology/approachThis research analyses a sample of 132 students enrolled in engineering higher education courses in Portugal and Brazil, while 83 of the respondents being involved in a JE and 49 not. The authors compare this group to another group of 176 social sciences students from several higher education courses, while 93 being enrolled in JE and 83 not.FindingsThe results show that students enrolled in JEs show higher levels of entrepreneurial intention (EI), as well as their antecedents such as attitude towards the behaviour (ATB), perceived behavioural control (PBC) and social norms (SN) , and the impact of this extracurricular activity is higher on engineering students than on social sciences students. Also, country and gender differences were found in some variables.Research limitations/implicationsFurther studies are needed to confirm the results in a broader population and in other countries. Also, the study addressed attitudes and intentions but not actual behaviour due to the time lag problem. There is also the risk of self-reported bias on the answers due to social desirability bias, for example. Finally, because JEs have their own recruitment process, there is a possible “self-selection problem” of students who might have previously developed some of entrepreneurial attitudes and skills assessed by the questionnaire.Practical implicationsThe results have important implications for engineering higher education institutions. Despite many of them provide entrepreneurship training courses, they should also encourage students to join extracurricular activities or even create their own at their institution to complement their skills' development. Also, teachers should be encouraged to integrate these activities into their subjects, avoiding a major barrier to the participation in extracurricular activities which is the students' time constraints. Finally, participation in extracurricular activities can be promoted by institutions in many ways, such as allowing students to obtain academic credits or through supporting financially or logistically the organisations that promote these activities.Social implicationsThis study contributes to the discussion on how to promote the development of entrepreneurial competences in young people that soon will enter the labour market.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the discussions on the value of extracurricular activities, such as the enrolment in JEs, to the development of entrepreneurial attitudes and intention on the training of the next generation of engineers capable of facing future worlds' challenges.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of junior enterprises in the development of students' entrepreneurial skills

Daniel¹,

Almeida

2020

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“…Among these barriers are reduced student enrollment in SLOs [3], lack of resources, i.e. funding, space and resources for the development of activities [4], and lack of recognition from universities and formal curriculum [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of Student Associations in the Acquisition of Competences in University Engineering Programs

Samanes

Parra

Berrueta

et al. 2023

2023 32nd Annual Conference of the European Association for Education in Electrical and Information Engineering (EAEEIE)

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Students in the STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), do not only require deep technical knowledge, but a complete set of global skills related to management, teamwork, lifelong learning, personal development, communications skills or proactiveness, abilities often referred as soft-skills. Student-led organizations, and specifically, university student associations, are one of the best alternatives to promote the acquisition of soft-skills in STEM high education fields. These skills are competences already included in official university programs that can hardly be addressed or acquired from traditional university education. This article studies how student enrollment in student led organizations (SLOs), with an active participation on their organization and activities, allows engineering students to achieve a better development of these soft skills. As case study, a medium size university, with 9000-students and eleven SLOs, six of them focused on STEM related fields, is used in this paper. A survey is conducted among the university community to identify their degree of participation in SLOs, and to test whether participation in these initiatives increases students' selfperception of their soft skill acquisition during their university studies. This survey shows how students of engineering programs, with a high degree of involvement in SLOs, demonstrated greater confidence in their soft skills at the end of their university years.

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Vietnamese University Students’ Motivation and Engagement with Participating in Extracurricular Activities to Develop Employability

Chi

2022

Graduate Employability Across Contexts

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Student-led employer-focused extra-curricular activity: a method of enhancing employability skills at Imperial College London and Loughborough University

Cited by 6 publications

References 3 publications

The role of junior enterprises in the development of students' entrepreneurial skills

The role of junior enterprises in the development of students' entrepreneurial skills

Role of Student Associations in the Acquisition of Competences in University Engineering Programs

Vietnamese University Students’ Motivation and Engagement with Participating in Extracurricular Activities to Develop Employability

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