LENGTH MATTERS! EXPLORATORY RESEARCH INTO THE IMPACT THE SHORTENING OF GUIDANCE APPOINTMENTS IS HAVING ON PRACTICE

Background (Extract from the research report)

This project was borne out of a curious concern for the future of guidance. The instigation of new all powerful regulatory ‘Office for Students’, twinned with the impending impact of the Teaching Excellence Framework (and it’s weighting of performance indicators, such as DLHE/ Graduate Outcomes), are sizeable eruptions to the HE landscape. With HEI strategists rubbing their furrowed brows over executive boardroom-tables across the UK, the pressure and drive to results seems insurmountable. If graduate employment outcomes become the measure of the HEI throne, then ‘Employability’ becomes the Golden Fleece.

To access the full report: https://prismic-io.s3.amazonaws.com/graduatemarkettrends%2F42265fa6-8409-4f71-a156-d6ba32ecebdb_impact-of-shortening-guidance.pdf

‘Employability’ is seen (by some) as the panacea to the malaises that plague HE of late such as: ‘what do students gain from coming to University?’ and ‘what is value for money?’, without them necessarily questioning: to what extent should it be? Within this heightened drive to ‘graduate outcomes’, what of the guidance practitioners: the champions of graduate gateways? Purveyors of pathways, surveyors of horizons? They who remain to the end ‘impartial’ and ‘non-directive’ – how does this ‘impartiality’ square with the challenges facing HEIs in the current marketisation of the sector? Seemingly, guidance appointments have been made shorter to accommodate the increase in need and demand for the services (Frigerio, 2010; Nijjar, 2009). However, there is a distinct lack of research in existing literature that explores or testifies as to the impact this is having on practice, and indeed, on students. This project seeks to address this lack through an exploratory study, the aim of which was to develop understanding on the impact this shortening of guidance appointments is having on practice. This was perceived to be a useful addition to the wider guidance community knowledge-base.

Conclusions

Para 5.1 Students want guidance, strongly value it, and receive benefits from it

The findings from this report consistently show that students expressly want and value the help and support offered by career guidance appointments, and moreover, that they appreciate that guidance comprises a rich exposition of practitioner skill, covering in a short time an outstanding array of topics, diagnostics, information and advice sharing, in addition to provision of non-directive guidance. This is a timely reminder for the guidance community that, within the current climate and push for tangible ‘employability’ results, that the transitional moment in time that students seem to need guidance is a very uncertain time for them, and that ultimately ‘Graduate Outcomes’ means little for the students in that moment. For them, getting ‘a job8’ is a given expectation, but making sense of their transition into labour markets from their current standpoint is often (even for those who have a firm sense of ‘what they want to do’) a daunting and demanding task. That, what they value is someone independent with whom to discuss and shape their (sometimes difficult) career decisions. This research highlights, through examples, some of the big decisions that students have made through the help of guidance practitioners, and therefore this serves as a piece of evidence to remind guidance practitioners that the work they do is important, valid and valued, even within given time constraints. Furthermore, it is important that in the move towards ‘Graduate Outcomes’ at 15 months, and in the context of current focus on ‘Student Experience’, that it is even more important that guidance remains a fundamental part of what is offered.

Para 5.2 5.2 Impacts of the shortening of appointment length are that students: receive fewer benefits from guidance, and have less time to develop their action plans for next steps

Both guidance practitioners and students alike confirmed that additional time would have added value, and that whilst appointments had a range from softer to harder ‘outcomes’, that more time could have firmed up students commitment to the actions they agreed to take, and reduced the likelihood of at least some of the students returning; the latter having obvious resource implications. Guidance Practitioners, as experts, know what student needs have not been addressed, with many offering students the chance to come back to explore these further, which again, also has implications for efficiency of resourcing. The fact that not a single student in the study wanted ‘less time’ for guidance remains significant, and certainly attests to the length of guidance not being any shorter. That the 33% of students from Phase I of the study who perceived guidance to be ‘too short,’ reflected that less had occurred within the guidance interview and purported lower scores/ a smaller range of benefits from the guidance is also a significant finding, and supports the conclusion that students gain less from having less time. This is considered to be useful information for service managers to note, when making a trade-off that comes with trying to resource supply/demand. This invites consideration into where ‘career guidance’ appointments sit as part of a whole service offering, and this information is thought to be particularly useful to consider when looking at bids for resource, wider concerns about equity of career guidance (as part of the ‘Student Experience’) and the principles of role that career guidance can play in advancing the cause of Social Justice as alluded to in Section 75 of the new Careers Strategy.

This is not dissimilar to the ongoing debate around GP appointment length. The challenge of the expert GP diagnosing the increasingly complex health concerns of populations with substantial co-morbidities in tight time constraints in some ways mirrors the challenges that face the career guidance practitioner, who is often tasked in a one-off, time-pressured appointment, to help students make sense of themselves and their future (in the dawn of the digital era, AI, the increase of the ‘knowledge sector’ and tightening of the hour-glass economy). Just as GPs are now looking at new, creative approaches to meeting patients’ needs, so should we, as a guidance community, start looking critically at creative approaches to meeting students’ needs.

Para 5.3 Students have low, or ill-defined expectations about what ‘career guidance’ is

There is some work to be done by individual institutions, and nationally among policy-makers and lobbying forces, (in addition to practitioners themselves) around what individuals can expect from career guidance interviews, as students have low or ill-defined expectations as to what ‘career guidance is’. Undertaking ‘pre-contracting’ work, either through information supplied in advance of interviews, through websites, and through raising national standards on ‘what one can expect from career guidance’ could help students prepare for guidance interviews in order to get the best from them, and also therefore impact on their sense of its effectiveness. This is important for service managers and policy makers alike, given the continual strain and pressure of resources that career guidance has had to endure, and should ensure that the best ‘value’ is being had by these appointments for all stakeholders.

Para 5.4 Guidance Practitioners are highly skilled ‘experts’, who are qualified to make a judgement on student needs, and yet still judge their own ability by perception of student satisfaction

This research project finds that Guidance Practitioners demonstrate an exceptional diversity and range of skill, and are able to ascertain students career needs (as distinct from their ‘wants’) and do their best to attempt to resolve these. This evidences that career guidance work is a highly-skilled profession, and the theoretical underpinning of these qualified career guidance practitioners is evident in the exposition of their skill during the guidance appointments. If guidance practitioners are limited by time in addressing students’ needs, this strongly impacts on the ‘value’ students find in their guidance appointments – as fundamentally, it is the guidance practitioners, the experts, who are able to tell, rather than untrained persons who ‘don’t know, what they don’t know’. The risk is, that by centreing the guidance appointments around meeting ‘student wants’ then the purpose of the guidance practitioner being trained and qualified to such a level of understanding becomes redundant, as that knowledge and skill is underplayed at best, or ignored/ unused at worst.

Five key recommendations

1. Services must continue to invest in Career Guidance provision
2. Professional Bodies should provide guidance on the standard length of guidance appointments
3. Further research should be conducted into the ‘expectations’ of service-users, and consideration given to how developing these might inform practice at local and national levels
4. Pre-contracting (micro and macro scales) could help in clarifying ‘wants’ and ‘needs’, with prework having been done before the guidance intervention
5. Profiling of the profession – to come back to what we are trained to do, and get that to be better understood

Emily Róisín Reid is the Senior Careers Consultant for Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, working with students across all undergraduate, postgraduate taught and research programmes. She is responsible for integrating ‘Careers’ into the MB ChB undergraduate medical curriculum, and delivering careers education and guidance through lectures, group work and 1-1 guidance appointments. She is also a part-time Practitioner-Researcher, with projects ongoing relating to the impact of guidance and widening participation in graduate-entry medicine. She is passionate about the impact careers guidance can have on economic growth, and the importance of the role of career guidance in championing social justice.

Contact: Emily Róisín Reid e: [email protected] – twitter account: @EmilyRoisinReid