Psychology Education and Work Readiness Integration: A Call for Research in Australia

Abstract

Supporting students to develop transferable skills and gain employment is a vital function of Universities in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A key area is work readiness, which has steadily grown in importance over the last 2 decades as tertiary institutions increasingly aim to produce graduates who perceive and are perceived as work ready. However, a large majority of graduates report a lack of skills and confidence needed for the effective transition from study to work. This may be particularly problematic for disciplines that impart both discipline-specific and transferrable skills, such as psychology. The aim of this paper is to addresses the concept of work readiness within Australian psychological training and explores the need to shed light on and integrate work readiness within the pedagogy of psychology within Australia. Specifically, this paper calls for a review of work readiness skills developed in psychological courses to ensure industry needs are met. Beyond such a review, it is suggested that tertiary centres need to facilitate students in capturing and reflecting upon the transferable skills that they develop; and build assessments that allow students to demonstrate transferable skills in a meaningful way. Further, this paper proposes that work readiness skills be routinely mapped onto graduate attributes and course learning outcomes to be readily available by students so as to increase students’ potential to articulate their learnt work readiness skills once in the workplace.

Experiences and views of clinical psychologists working in non-urban areas of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

“…Only 17% of the participants reported preparedness to work in a non-urban context from their theoretical training. Schweinsberg et al (2021) support the integration of work readiness in the training of graduates. The low percentage of participants' readiness indicates the need for the theoretical aspect of psychology training to invest in offering graduates essential competencies that enable them to cope with the demands of diverse contexts in which they practice.…”

“…This participant’s expectation of focused attention to all the areas of clinical practice from the theoretical aspect of the training is not unreasonable. There is growing research that highlights the need to support students with skills for the working environment as a vital function of tertiary institutions (Schweinsberg et al, 2021). Failure of training to equip psychologists with competencies for all aspects of clinical practice could hinder the expected efficient mental health service delivery at the beginning of the internship as indicated by Pillay and Kramers-Olen (2014).…”

“…For these participants, their training was deficient and failed to equip them with relevant competencies for non-urban settings. Researchers also emphasize the value of clinical training that equips non-urban service providers with context-sensitive and discipline-specific competencies (Ahmed & Pillay, 2004;Schweinsberg et al, 2021;Sutherland & Chur-Hansen, 2014). Therefore, the finding that most participants expressed failure of their training to adequately equip them to work in the non-urban context where the majority of state-dependent South Africans reside (World Bank, 2012) is a major concern.…”

A revised definition of psychological literacy: Multiple stakeholder perspectives.

“…Future research could assess the extent to which the concept is generalizable, especially to so-called “non-Western countries”. Schweinsberg et al (2021) suggest that a review of attributes should occur every decade. The focus of the next decade’s review should be the inclusion of as many countries and cultural contexts as possible.…”

The measurement of psychological literacy and employable skills self-efficacy in undergraduate psychology students.

“…An employability focus also provokes consideration of the level of work readiness of graduates and whether the primary goal of higher education is to provide a workforce that transitions seamlessly from study to work. Debate about the work readiness of specific disciplines (e.g., psychology) is ongoing with authors arguing for a clearer understanding of the “discipline specific attributes of psychology graduates” (Schweinsberg et al, 2021, p. 7). We propose that the employability and work readiness of psychology graduates can be captured by the assessment of their psychological literacy, as well as their self-reported employable skills self-efficacy which may develop synergistically during undergraduate psychology training.…”