School students' views on their working and learning in the workplace

This supplementary report discusses additional analysis of data gathered during the study reported in School students learning from their paid and unpaid work. The study was designed to find the extent and learning outcomes of school students' engagement with workplaces, focusing primarily on work experience, paid part-time work and structured work placements (referred to in the report as 'vocational placements').

Research was carried out in two States, South Australia and New South Wales, through three major methods: a questionnaire administered in thirteen schools to students in Years 10, 11 and 12; six school and locality-based case studies including employer interviews and focus groups; and interviews with key national figures in the area. Of the 1451 students who responded to the questionnaire, 68% had undertaken work experience, 60% had formal paid jobs, and 11% had done vocational placements. When Year 11 and 12 responses only were considered, 88% had done work experience and 18% had undertaken vocational placements.

This study analysed additional qualitative material from the report School students learning from their paid and unpaid work. Valuable remarks by students about their workplace experiences had been offered in response to a number of open-ended questions, but were not able to be analysed for the original report. In addition a small amount of extra quantitative analysis was carried out. It is recommended that this report be read in conjunction with the original report, which contains the major quantitative results and information on representativeness of the sample. Government schools were under-represented in the questionnaire responses, which may have led to an under-reporting of overall workplace engagement, except in family businesses, in which non-government students were shown to be more likely to be involved.

Because of the comparatively low percentage of students involved in placements compared with work experience and paid work, some of the analysis could not include placement students as numbers of responses to some questions were too low. Moreover, the placement students did not appear to be distributed across industry areas in accordance with nationallyknown data on placements, and so may not have been altogether typical.

Type of activities

The students surveyed undertook a wide range of activities in all of their workplace engagement, with communication-related activities, dealing with customers, and food preparation being the most common in both work experience and paid work. Paid work was more likely to involve operating equipment than work experience. The range of activities was wide in all types of workplace engagement, from cleaning out animal enclosures in a zoo to dyeing hair and servicing cars.

Enjoyment of work

Although most students enjoyed their workplace engagement at least a little, paid work had slightly higher rates of 'non-enjoyment' (10%) than work experience and placements (6% each). Those who were engaged in all types of activity were most likely to enjoy their paid jobs. Those who had only done work experience were most likely to make negative comments about work experience.

Of those who volunteered extra comments about their workplace engagement (fewer than half in each case), a number of negative and positive comments were made. For both paid work and placements, negative comments outweighed positive comments. Some of the negative comments from paid student-workers were very strongly worded and these types of comments may help account for the perception noted in the original report among education department officials that part-time work undertaken by school students is unrewarding. The negative comments made by some of the placement students seemed to indicate that these particular placement students were being treated like work-experience students.

What the students learned

Analysis of the qualitative comments indicated that generic skills were mentioned more often in relation to paid work, while technical skills were mentioned more often about work experience. In all types of engagement, both positive and negative learning experiences were mentioned. Many students, for example, on work experience found that their preferred career was not what they had expected. Others, however, learned a great deal. A small percentage of paid student-workers commented that their bad experiences at work had made them decide to stay at school for longer.

Transfer of learning among school and work places

Students did not report a great deal of transfer of learning from school to work experience. The most commonly mentioned transfer related to written communication, with a small percentage reporting specific preparation for work experience. There was slightly less reported transfer from work experience back to school, with around a third of those choosing to make comment mentioning generic skills.

Fewer students reported transfer of learning from school to paid work than from school to work experience, and these more often mentioned specific skills such as using a computer, using a cash register and woodwork. Written communication was less often mentioned. Transfer back the other way, from work to school, was more likely to be linked to good manners and less likely to be linked to career path choices, than for work experience.

Most students who undertook placements found good transfer of learning from their VET course to their placements; however there was less transfer of learning back from the placement into the VET course.

Students who had done both paid work and work experience reported some transfer of learning between the two types of engagement. Customer service skills featured particularly heavily in the transfer from paid work to work experience, but was less emphasised in the other direction.

Comparing learning from different types of workplace experiences

An earlier and more quantitive report* on this same survey showed that nearly two-thirds of those who had done both paid work and work experience thought they learned most from paid work. Additional analysis showed that students from self-reported lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to learn more from paid jobs than work experience. The same held true for those with lower academic achievement.

For those who learned more from paid work, the following reasons (apart from the fact that they got paid) were most commonly given:

• more hands on
• more responsibility
• enjoyed it more.

Despite paid work being reported as a site of more learning than work experience, 68% of students who had done both said they still found work experience useful. Reasons most commonly given were:

• insight into a different area of work
• helped choose career path
• work experience and paid job were linked.

These findings strongly confirmed the finding from the original report* that the special value of work experience is in exploring careers and different types of workplaces rather than as a general introduction to working life. The comments about paid work underline the value of authentic engagement in a workplace as a full member of the paid workforce, It seems therefore that both types of activity are valuable and neither can substitute fully for the other.

* E Smith & A Green 2001, School students learning from their paid and unpaid work, NCVER, Adelaide