Employability Sabbaticals: Employability Sabbaticals: Experience of Experience of

‘‘Boundary Crossing’Boundary Crossing’

Elena ZAITSEVAElena ZAITSEVA E.Zaitseva@ljmu.ac.uk Elizabeth MITCHELL E.Mitchell1@ljmu.ac.ukElizabeth MITCHELL E.Mitchell1@ljmu.ac.uk

SummarySummary

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1. LJMU Centre for Excellence in Employability, Leadership and Professional Learning

2. Employability sabbaticals’ program from ‘Boundary Crossing’ theory perspective

3. Two case studies and research method

4. Findings

5. Conclusions

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• Subject focus: sport, dance, exercise and physical activity

• Themes: employability, leadership, entrepreneurship • Organisational structure: departments based in two Faculties (Science & Education) • Research & evaluation focus

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Employability of Sport Science Employability of Sport Science GraduatesGraduates

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• Career pathways are often not well defined

• Many qualifications in sport are relatively new and employers are often unaware of the knowledge and skills the graduates are equipped with

• Placement experience is seen as critical in developing students’ practical experience and skills and for informing career choice

Employability sabbaticalsEmployability sabbaticals

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Aims: to provide staff with dedicated time to work directly with employers in order to:

• better understand the labour market, job roles and responsibilities

• ‘fine tune’ the curriculum to reflect the knowledge and skills demanded by employers

Communities of Practice (CoP)Communities of Practice (CoP) and ‘Boundary crossing’ theory and ‘Boundary crossing’ theory

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•CoP: a group of individuals participating in communal activity, and experiencing/continuously creating their shared identity through engaging in and contributing to the practices of their communities(Lave and Wenger,1991)

•Boundaries historically exist between CoP

•Important to maintain connection with other relevant communities - this is where ‘boundary crossing’ happens

CoP and ‘Boundary crossing’ CoP and ‘Boundary crossing’ theory theory

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•Boundary crossing is enabled by ‘boundary objects’ (Wenger, 1998)

•Brokers’ make connections across CoP, facilitate coordination and open new possibilities for new meanings (Tuomi-Grohn,2003)

Theory of ‘strong and weak ties’Theory of ‘strong and weak ties’

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•Strong and weak ties are conceptualising the bonds which exist between members of a society (Granovetter, 1983, Haythornthwaite, 2002 )

•Strong ties: mainly exist between close colleagues, friends and family or in a relatively close CoP (emotional bonds and confirmation)

• Weak ties:  play a part in the dissemination of ideas between communities, thus facilitating information exchange between networks of strong ties. Important for getting jobs

•Strength of the ties between CoP plays an important role in successful ‘boundary crossing’

Case Study A – Sabbatical in Case Study A – Sabbatical in Physical Activity, Exercise and Physical Activity, Exercise and

HealthHealth

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Sabbatical (one semester long) is aimed to:

•Enhance employability skills provision within the BSc degree programme •Find out about the knowledge, skills, personal attributes, required of individuals working in these areas

3 stages: preparation, visits/semi-structured interviews, final questionnaire

Case Study B – Football ScienceCase Study B – Football Science

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Sabbatical is aimed to:

• Ensure that curriculum contains appropriate opportunities for the development of employability skills

• Explore possibilities for more dedicated placements for students

• Examine career pathways of staff within football-related organisations

• Strong ‘knowledge transfer’ component to the sabbatical

Case Study B – Football ScienceCase Study B – Football Science

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Organisational context:

• Placements within one year sabbatical varied from one to two weeks in duration

•Each placement had specific objectives to achieve depending on the profile of the host organisation

• Lecturer posted blogs to give students immediate access to the information

Research Questions and MethodResearch Questions and Method

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•How the experience of ‘transfer’ from one CoP to another was perceived by sabbatical holders

•Interim finding that could have an impact on the academic CoP (curriculum, staff development etc)

Research method: series of semi-structured interviews

Findings: Findings: Preparation and time commitmentPreparation and time commitment

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• ‘Weak ties’ and wrong ‘boundary object’ in case of sabbatical A - difficulties in establishing contact• ‘Strong ties’ in case of B - easy to arrange visits •‘Cognitive retooling’ was time consuming

A: Although sabbatical has not produced a double load, it has been heading in that direction…

B: I may be in a football club from 8 in the morning till possibly 10 at night if I am going to games…

…Switching from sabbatical mood to administrative mood and trying to jungle things is difficult…

Findings: Maintaining Links Findings: Maintaining Links with own CoPwith own CoP

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…There isn’t one visit that I go on where I don’t come back and say to [a colleague] “I found this out, this would be really great, can we do something about this?

•Interaction with students had an impact on the process and content of the enquiry (Sab B)

•Both lecturers felt isolated and detached because of the inability to share immediate findings and emotional experiences

Findings: ‘boundary objects’ Findings: ‘boundary objects’ chosenchosen

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•Proved to be very successful (job roles, responsibilities in case of A and knowledge transfer (KT) in case of B)

•KT helped to gain access to a traditionally closed environment of football clubs

•Role of ‘broker’ proved to be more complex/multidimensional (KT happened on vertical and horizontal levels)

Findings: Impact on the Curriculum Findings: Impact on the Curriculum and WBL opportunitiesand WBL opportunities

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Sabbatical A• Enriched and re-considered understanding of students’ employability• Development of a skills ‘checklist ’• The difference in interpretation/definition of the skills• New assessment strategies, practice based modules, placements opportunities

Findings: Impact on the Curriculum Findings: Impact on the Curriculum and WBL opportunitiesand WBL opportunities

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Sabbatical B•More realistic vision of employment in football and limitations of the university programme

•Insights in the career pathways

•Reaffirming importance of practical experience through work based/related learning and volunteering

Findings: Fulfilment of Initial Findings: Fulfilment of Initial Expectations and IssuesExpectations and Issues

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• High level of satisfaction in relation to what was achieved

• Communication issues

• Issues of academic identity and role conflict

Findings: Fulfilment of Initial Findings: Fulfilment of Initial Expectations and IssuesExpectations and Issues

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…There are days when I enjoy it and there are days when it is so utterly depresses me I just don’t want to be around those places… It goes from a real kind of spread of feelings, because … you see situations that you just know people aren’t able to cope with…People make decisions … when maybe they are not in a place to make them. I can see it is so complicated… With my skill base which is maybe better than some of these people… That’s hard to watch sometimes, I think…

ConclusionsConclusions

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• Sabbaticals can be a very effective tool of ‘boundary crossing’ between academic and employers’ CoP•Academic CoP: More realistic understanding of students’ employability; new partnerships, learning resources, curricula changes •Offer space and time to make a difference •Issues: ‘real’ practice - ‘ideal’ academic world; time consuming, perceived isolation

Future plansFuture plans

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• Implementation of the curriculum changes (evaluation)

• Establishing a forum/network for sabbatical holders

• Further research focused on how sabbaticals impacted on the employers (impact on their CoP)