It is notable that there are concerning implications with the ongoing use of Work Integrated Lear... more It is notable that there are concerning implications with the ongoing use of Work Integrated Learning to incorporate practical learning outcomes in Construction Management undergraduate courses. The overall ideology that Australian Universities are becoming service markets to produce skilled labour for the industrial sectors, has seen a greater influx of enrolment of students than ever before. The problem arises in where it is almost unfeasible to distribute Work Integrated Learning efficiently across the vast and diverse student cohorts. There is also a contradiction amongst the midst in where employers are still expecting graduates to be proficient in the application of their construction managerial knowledge to working context. An alternative to Work Integrated Learning is the Problem Based Learning framework which is now mostly incorporated by Universities to supplement in-lieu to practical learning outcomes by exploiting Experiential Learning and meta-cognition (soft skill development) in the training of capable graduates. The purpose of this research is to illustrate the workings behind a best practicing problem based learning framework by using a comparative and ranking analysis to highlight which university that offers Construction Management is proficiently administering such a delivery. The research which was composed from a comprehensive literature review and a web based scan, consolidated the results of graduate satisfaction surveys, construction managerial demographics and a government benchmark of surveyed construction manager skills into the final outcome. The findings found Deakin University out of the group of universities studied to encompass the best practicing problem based learning framework in terms of graduate satisfaction and soft skill development. However, when the final analysis was carried out which required looking through the perspective of both the graduate surveys and industry expectations, the ranked results of the universities underlined a completely different problem which left another open-ended conclusion to the undertakings of this paper.
It is believed that many graduates coming from Construction Management undergraduate programs are... more It is believed that many graduates coming from Construction Management undergraduate programs are not yet ready to meet the dynamic needs and demands of the Building and Construction Industry. For Higher Education institutions i.e Universities this poses a unique challenge on how to integrate experiential learning into a construction management undergraduate framework. Work Integrated Learning seems to be the most effective way of instilling the requirements of Industry as learning outcomes which a student needs to achieve. Many barriers inflict the overall integration effort and Work Integrated Learning is left as a voluntary addition to traditional curricular activities that a student may simply wish to adopt in addition to their core studies. An open ended problem is now left in where demands to produce more employable graduates are still being sought by Industry but Universities still primarily adopt their traditional methods of teaching. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate through the literature pertained on the different types of research undertakings that were carried out to discover what would be fundamentally required for a successful meshing of Work Integrated Learning within Construction Management undergraduate programs. Different models of Work Integrated Learning were overviewed to weigh the benefits and issues that are affiliated with such ventures. This paper holistically examines the different attributes that would perhaps lead to further research on a successful Work Integrated Learning model that will not implicate in regards to feasibility for both the Universities of Higher Education and Enterprises of Industry.
It is notable that there are concerning implications with the ongoing use of Work Integrated Lear... more It is notable that there are concerning implications with the ongoing use of Work Integrated Learning to incorporate practical learning outcomes in Construction Management undergraduate courses. The overall ideology that Australian Universities are becoming service markets to produce skilled labour for the industrial sectors, has seen a greater influx of enrolment of students than ever before. The problem arises in where it is almost unfeasible to distribute Work Integrated Learning efficiently across the vast and diverse student cohorts. There is also a contradiction amongst the midst in where employers are still expecting graduates to be proficient in the application of their construction managerial knowledge to working context. An alternative to Work Integrated Learning is the Problem Based Learning framework which is now mostly incorporated by Universities to supplement in-lieu to practical learning outcomes by exploiting Experiential Learning and meta-cognition (soft skill development) in the training of capable graduates. The purpose of this research is to illustrate the workings behind a best practicing problem based learning framework by using a comparative and ranking analysis to highlight which university that offers Construction Management is proficiently administering such a delivery. The research which was composed from a comprehensive literature review and a web based scan, consolidated the results of graduate satisfaction surveys, construction managerial demographics and a government benchmark of surveyed construction manager skills into the final outcome. The findings found Deakin University out of the group of universities studied to encompass the best practicing problem based learning framework in terms of graduate satisfaction and soft skill development. However, when the final analysis was carried out which required looking through the perspective of both the graduate surveys and industry expectations, the ranked results of the universities underlined a completely different problem which left another open-ended conclusion to the undertakings of this paper.
It is believed that many graduates coming from Construction Management undergraduate programs are... more It is believed that many graduates coming from Construction Management undergraduate programs are not yet ready to meet the dynamic needs and demands of the Building and Construction Industry. For Higher Education institutions i.e Universities this poses a unique challenge on how to integrate experiential learning into a construction management undergraduate framework. Work Integrated Learning seems to be the most effective way of instilling the requirements of Industry as learning outcomes which a student needs to achieve. Many barriers inflict the overall integration effort and Work Integrated Learning is left as a voluntary addition to traditional curricular activities that a student may simply wish to adopt in addition to their core studies. An open ended problem is now left in where demands to produce more employable graduates are still being sought by Industry but Universities still primarily adopt their traditional methods of teaching. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate through the literature pertained on the different types of research undertakings that were carried out to discover what would be fundamentally required for a successful meshing of Work Integrated Learning within Construction Management undergraduate programs. Different models of Work Integrated Learning were overviewed to weigh the benefits and issues that are affiliated with such ventures. This paper holistically examines the different attributes that would perhaps lead to further research on a successful Work Integrated Learning model that will not implicate in regards to feasibility for both the Universities of Higher Education and Enterprises of Industry.
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