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South African Journal of Higher Education http://dx.doi.org/10.28535/31-5-609
Volume 31 | Number 5 | 2017 | pages 49‒64 eISSN 1753-5913
49
WORK INTEGRATED LEARNING BENEFITS FOR STUDENT
CAREER PROSPECTS – MIXED MODE ANALYSIS
C. M. Govender*
e-mail: cookig@uj.ac.za
M. Wait*
e-mail: mwait@uj.ac.za
*Department of Marketing Management
University of Johannesburg
Johannesburg, South Africa
ABSTRACT
Work integrated learning (WIL) aims to strategically inspire students to embrace prospective future
careers, thereby contributing to economic innovation and growth. Higher Education is mandated
to integrate WIL into curricula and qualifications in order to promote student career development.
This is an invaluable opportunity for academics to not only integrate theory and practice, but to
expose graduates-to-be to the world of work and assess their experiential learning. Most
academics seem to shy away from WIL implementation due to perceived increase in workload,
denying themselves and their students the benefits of WIL, especially for student career prospects.
This empirical article reports on a transdisciplinary exploration into the benefits of two
discipline-specific WIL projects using a mixed model analysis approach. A comparative,
triangulated study of the Marketing qualitative and Human Resource quantitative data reveals that
the students enjoy their WIL experience, gain additional knowledge and skills, and are exposed to
various career opportunities.
Key words: Work integrated learning; Higher Education; transdisciplinary; HRM; Marketing;
career prospects; placement; skills, triangulation.
INTRODUCTION
Employers demand that higher educational institutions should provide a strong knowledge base
to their graduates, and are especially concerned if these graduates are not equipped to apply that
knowledge at work. A growing number of reports argue that a strong disciplinary knowledge
base does not necessarily guarantee a graduate a job. One technique that could improve
students’ work readiness and ability to transfer theoretical knowledge into the practical
implementation, is work integrated learning or WIL (Freudenberg, Brimble and Vyvyan 2010,
43).
Govender and Wait Work Integrated Learning benefits for student career prospects
50
Furthermore, classroom-based instruction alone does not produce future-fit graduates. The
role of WIL is to encourage learning for performance. This is essential in the development of
the desired graduate profile. The competency profile of a graduate should include discipline-
specific knowledge, skills and attitudes, as well as workplace generic cognitive, behavioural
and technical skills and attributes (Powell, Tindal and Millwood 2008; Coll and Zegwaard
2006; Ishisaka et al. 2004).
WIL and work-based learning are gaining momentum within tertiary institutions,
including in South Africa (SA). There are definite academic, personal, career and work ethic
benefits, and WIL promotes partnerships with business, industry and government to improve
economic growth for the country (Matoti, Junqueira and Odora 2011). With nearly 70 per cent
of SA’s population of 50 million people under the age of 35, Higher Education has to play its
role in the process of preparing future-fit graduates to contribute to the growth of the economic
sector. Over 11 million employment opportunities are required to reduce South Africa’s
unemployment rate from 27 per cent in 2011 to 6 per cent by 2030 (South Africa 2011).
The gap in the literature indicates limited empirical research on what the benefits of WIL
projects are, whether self-placement is successful, and whether students perceive WIL
organisations as promoting their career prospects. This empirical article presents the findings
of a transdisciplinary, mixed methods comparative study (Harrison and Reilly 2011) on the
benefits of the implementation of WIL in Higher Education. The three research objectives of
this article are as follows:
1. To identify whether the WIL experience benefits students.
2. To determine whether self-placement is a rewarding experience for students.
3. To determine whether WIL provides career prospects for students.
The scope of this study consists of dissecting, inspecting and integrating the results of
discipline-specific WIL projects in the Marketing and Human Resource Management (HRM)
Diploma qualifications. A comparison of the qualitative Marketing and quantitative HRM data
was undertaken using a mixed mode research analysis design. This article offers contributions
on the theoretical, practical and research levels as follows:
• Theoretical level – adds to the body of knowledge on WIL, especially in African Higher
Education.
• Practical level – provides WIL stakeholders (educators, students, business, government)
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51
with strategies for benefiting from WIL in the use of the self-placement technique and in
fostering career prospects.
• Research level – these transdisciplinary, comparative, triangulated conclusions of
independent qualitative and quantitative research present a mixed mode analysis in a
mixed methods research design that contributes to future research methodological designs.
As background to the article, current trends regarding the benefits of WIL to students, WIL
placement methods and WIL and career prospects, are presented in the literature review section.
The mixed method research with a triangulated, mixed mode analysis design is described in the
methodology section thereafter. The findings of the independent qualitative and quantitative
studies are presented in the results section and a triangulation of the findings is presented in the
discussion section. The article ends with the conclusion section to summarise the article
discussion and to make recommendations for future research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Work integrated learning makes Higher Education meaningful for students by personalising
their learning, enhancing their awareness of the work relationship, enhancing work-related
learning, and encouraging personal aspiration (McIlveen 2011). This section deals with the
student benefits for WIL, WIL placement and career prospects from WIL.
WIL benefits for students
WIL forces students to be productive and to do real work that translates into social and
economic values. There are measurable benefits to students, the employer, the community, and
to the educator (McLennan and Keating 2008). When student learning from real-life situations
is effectively and authentically assessed by educators, the benefits escalate to the creation of
value-adding and character-building of future-fit graduates, ready for the workplace. WIL
benefits for students abound, for example, development in these skills: communication,
interpersonal relations, technology, writing, punctuality, attendance, team work, leadership,
career development, observing theory in practice, putting theory into practice, awareness of
workplace culture, meeting workplace expectations; opportunity to develop a range of personal
attributes, coping in a rapidly changing world of work, enhanced employment prospects,
developing career strategies, developing interactive attributes, and building a network of
contacts (McLennan and Keating 2008; Orrell 2004; Cooper, Orrell and Bowden 2010).
WIL projects are implemented to develop student competencies and studies indicate
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substantial personal development by students who participate in such projects. WIL projects
have also demonstrated increases in job knowledge and skills, and lead to an improvement of
attitudes and behaviours towards work readiness. WIL projects have several positive effects on
student learning, such as the identification of theoretical concepts taught in class, putting theory
into practice, appreciating that academic success is not the only attribute for career success, and
development of communicative abilities (Freudenberg, Brimble and Vyvyan 2010, 44).
Valkanos (2007, 22) states that the focusing of structured experiences outside of the classroom
encourages team spirit, develops cooperation, and improves the decision-making processes of
dealing with problems arising at work. Such techniques help students to develop effective
communication, problem-solving and decision-making skills.
Students could also benefit from possible financial gains if organisations pay students for
their efforts, or they generate income as a result of their WIL experience. The skills and rewards
gained from the development of a portfolio of evidence (POE) on work experiences are benefits
to students, lecturers and business if it is an authentic account and reflection of the WIL
experience. Further benefits include increased employment prospects, the potential to negotiate
higher salary packages, development of career strategies, and building networks and contacts
(McLennan and Keating 2008). Empirical evidence on the benefits of discipline-specific WIL
projects and models, such as in the Marketing field, incorporating the collaboration of all
stakeholders for the benefit of the students, is absent. In fact, WIL is often reduced to case
studies and industry guest speakers only (Wait 2014, 1680).
The research into the effectiveness of WIL is scarce. Aldridge et al. (2015) mentions that
the problem with WIL is that its benefits are undoubted, but difficult to substantiate. The
informal and anecdotal evidence in favour of WIL is overwhelming, but the hurdles in the way
of proper research into the question need to be overcome. Aldridge et al. (2015) states that WIL
principles are not being empirically tested in any rigorous way. This article reports on the
empirical studies conducted to measure the benefits of WIL and experiential learning to
undergraduate students in an African context.
WIL placement
Students view work-integrated learning (WIL) placements as the most significant influence on
their future career (Gribble et al. 2014). Securing a placement in the workplace, even in
developing countries where there are opportunities for tax rebates and skills levy paybacks, can
be complex and frustrating. Betts (2009, 100) argues that since many companies will not even
consider hiring graduates who do not have experience in their field, why should they consider
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undergraduate students?
Stakeholders often ponder if WIL placement is a strength and an opportunity, or a
challenge and threat to students and the WIL project? Ideally industry, business and government
should be forthcoming, available and accessible; approaching educators and students with
offers of workplace placement for experiential learning (Brundiers, Wiek and Redman 2010).
Workplace learning units must take responsibility for accepting and placing students into their
organisation. HRD (Human Resource Development) managers must especially ensure that there
are appropriate standards in supervision of students and that placements are in appropriate
contexts so that students and the organisation are able to achieve their goals (McLennan and
Keating 2008).
In most WIL projects, the educator controls all interaction between the organisation and
the students, including student placements, site visits, ongoing monitoring of student work and
progress, and assessment of student learning and performance occurs during the placement
(Holdsworth, Watty and Davies 2009, 7). Govender and Taylor (2015) and Walmsley, Thomas
and Jameson (2006) propose student self-placement, instead of educator, business or
government placement of the student, for an effective and efficient WIL model implementation,
as well as tremendous benefits for student experiential learning. The emphasis is on self-
placement as it benefits the student in that s/he must think about, plan, and confidently approach
an organisation to request, secure, confirm and complete their WIL placement.
This article reports on the investigation into the benefits and rewards of WIL self-
placement in a cosmopolitan, African city environment.
WIL and career prospects
The skills required for entry-level workplace practice are indeed not only learnt in the lecture
room through cognitive processes, but also through exploring a combination of cultural
competence, critical thinking and intellectual reflection that occur in any authentic globalised
environment (Gribble et al. 2014; Gamble, Patrick and Peach 2010). However, on the other
hand, qualifications that are too vocationally focused may result in losing sight of the academic
side of education. It is recognised that students must be equipped with skills that will support
them in finding meaningful employment, but education is about more than getting employment.
WIL programmes should allow the student to be involved in critical thinking and transformative
learning. There is a recognised tension between academic goals and industry productivity;
education must remain the overriding principle in any WIL programme (Coll 2007, 137).
The call is for organisations to support WIL projects, establish career paths for
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undergraduates, highlight relevant knowledge transfer, and enter into long-
term employment relationships with students entering the marketplace (Reiche, Harzing and
Kraimer 2009). Together with universities, colleges and other tertiary institutions, workplace
managers should be preparing undergraduate students for their careers through experiential
learning and entrepreneurship education (Cooper, Bottomley and Gordon 2004; Cooper, Orrell
and Bowden 2010).
There is a positive correlation between the WIL student’s social ties, their perceived fit
with the organisation to their learning during the WIL experience, and their perceived career
prospects in the organisation. Students who hold positive perceived career prospects are more
likely to be employed and retained by the organisation (Reiche, Kraimer and Harzing 2011).
This article reports on the investigation into whether students consider the organisations they
gained their WIL experience from as potential organisations for future career prospects.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In order to present the authenticity of the original research designs, the qualitative Marketing
research design is described first, followed by a description of the quantitative HRM research
method. The context is that two independent researchers working independently of each other,
in two different campuses of the same university, conducted independent studies on a similar
group of students. The theoretical framework underpinning this study is complex yet simple: a
mixed model analysis allows researchers to take a parallel and triangulated view of two different
methodologies and results around a common theme and/or phenomenon (Leech and
Onwuegbuzie 2007; Harrison and Reilly 2011).
This article adopts a mixed mode analysis embedded in a mixed methods research design,
otherwise known as a hybrid design (Harrison and Reilly 2011, 19), where the discussion
section of this article triangulates the significant findings of two independent qualitative and
quantitative studies. A triangulated approach (Leech and Onwuegbuzie 2007; Saunders, Lewis
and Thornhill 2007) allows researchers to be grounded by a post-positivist (Zammito 2004;
Hamlin 2015) ontology (nature of reality) and epistemology (nature of knowledge). In order to
achieve the research objectives as well as infer interpretations and derive meaning from the
results of similar research that measures the impact of WIL projects, two different (qualitative
and quantitative) and discipline-specific (Marketing and HRM) research studies collaborated to
conduct interdisciplinary comparisons on their data.
The qualitative and quantitative methodologies and results are presented separately,
before presenting a triangulated discussion of significant findings. This section presents the
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research paradigm, design, sampling, participants, procedure, analysis and ethical
considerations for each of the qualitative (Marketing) and quantitative (HRM) WIL studies
conducted.
Qualitative marketing study
The Marketing project that is discussed in this article is a WIL project whereby National
Diploma: Marketing students have to sell products for companies that are affiliated to the Direct
Selling Association (DSA) of South Africa. Students are taught the subject theory in the
Personal Selling and Sales Management classes and are expected to apply this knowledge in
the real world by achieving a set sales target. This project is referred to as the DSA-UJ Project
(Wait 2014).
To determine the impact of the DSA-UJ Project on students’ careers, the views of students
who successfully passed the DSA-UJ WIL Project were measured. This part of the article made
use of a qualitative research design and used two group interviews that were analysed by using
deductive content analysis. Petzer (2011, 32) opines that exploratory research is usually linked
to qualitative research. Deductive content analysis is used when the structure of analysis is
operationalised on the basis of previous knowledge and the purpose of the study is theory
testing. A deductive approach is based on a theory or model and therefore moves from the
general to the specific. Elo (2007, 109) continues and states that deductive content analysis
includes three phases namely, preparation, organising and reporting. However, despite this,
there are no systematic rules for analysing data and the key feature of all content analysis is that
many words of text are classified into smaller categories.
Preparation phase: In this phase the researcher must consider the following: what to
analyse, in what detail, sampling matters, and the unit of analysis (Elo 2007, 109). For the
purpose of this study the researchers wanted to test opinions about the impact of the DSA-UJ
Project on students’ careers and the participants were randomly selected from a list of students
who had successfully completed the DSA-UJ Project. Two group interviews were held with six
students each. Berndt and Petzer (2011, 45) state that qualitative research assists in
understanding the background to the research problem, and this type of research involves fewer
participants and emphasises that the quality of the information is important. Elo (2007, 109)
states that the most suitable unit of analysis for content analysis research is a whole interview
that is large enough to be considered as a whole, and small enough to be kept in mind as a
context for meaning unit during the analysis process. The researcher also acted as the
interviewer and led the group interviews according to a predetermined topic list related to the
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skills and career prospects of the participants. The meetings were recorder and transcribed. The
data from the transcribed meetings was then analysed using the qualitative content analysis,
then using predetermined codes method.
The next phase is the analytical process whereby the researcher learns ‘what is going on?’,
and tries to make sense of the data. (Elo 2007, 109). Berndt and Petzer (2011, 84) postulates
that qualitative methods are defined in trying to develop an understanding of how participants
experience a particular occurrence. The researcher wants to understand the participants thought
processes and motivation, and is responsible for interpreting the participants’ experiences
(Berndt and Petzer 2011, 85). Elo (2007, 111) continues and suggests that deductive content
analysis be used for testing categories, concepts, models and hypotheses.
The next step in qualitative content analysis is to develop a categorisation matrix (Elo
2007, 110). Categories should be defined in ways that will be understandable to others, and a
good example is to use operational definitions that are clear and specific. For the purpose of
this study, the following data categories were created: benefits of WIL to students, student
placement, and increased opportunities for career prospects. After the categorisation matrix has
been developed, all the data is reviewed for content and coded for correspondence to the
identified categories (Elo 2007, 107).
The previous section presented the methodology of the qualitative Marketing study. The
next section presents the methodology of the quantitative HRM study.
Quantitative HRM study
The research paradigm of the HRM study is grounded in a post-positivism philosophy
(Zammito 2004; Hamlin 2015). The ontological and epistemological approach implies that even
objective research is a real, live, interactive process where the gathering of data and the analysis
and interpretation of results are somewhat influenced by both researcher and participants
(Zammito 2004; Hamlin 2015; Heppner et al. 2015). The research design is a quantitative
survey questionnaire commonly used to gather data on multiple factors, from a large sample,
in order to justify conclusions and make inferences on the larger population (Thomas 2008;
Nardi 2015). Convenience and purposive sampling (Tongco 2007) was used to select research
participants from the student population. Third-year HRM Diploma students who were targeted
for the WIL experience in their HRM module were invited as participants. Of the 103 students
who completed the questionnaire, 100 questionnaires were considered to be valid and are
included in the analysis. This study achieved an excellent response rate of 97 per cent.
The data gathering procedure entailed distributing a self-administered questionnaire for
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completion during lecture time. Participants were invited to participate in the research study
voluntarily and were assured that all data will be used for research purposes only. Participants
completed the questionnaire by writing down their responses to open-ended questions and
rating their responses on a Likert scale of highly disappointing (1), disappointing (2),
average (3), rewarding (4), or highly rewarding (5). Section A of the questionnaire captured the
biographical data of the participants. Section B captured the organisational and workplace data.
Section C requested responses on how students prepared for their WIL placement and
experience. Section D requested information on student WIL experience itself. In Section E of
the questionnaire, students reported on how they experienced completing and compiling their
POE for assessment. Section F evaluated how students experienced the HRM WIL
implementation itself. Although the quantitative study gathered data on various topics related
to the WIL project as part of the Review Phase of the HRM WIL Partnership Model (Govender
and Taylor 2015), this article only reports on a part of the larger study. The aspects of the
questionnaire that related directly to the benefits of WIL, WIL placement and career prospects
related to the student WIL experience were analysed and presented in this article.
The data was analysed using exploratory and descriptive research techniques (Henson and
Roberts 2006). The quantitative results of this article present the frequency statistics and the
open-ended responses to the benefits of the WIL experience to students, the rewards of self-
placement to students, and career prospect choices of students. The data was captured onto an
Excel spreadsheet and uploaded into the SPSS software programme for frequency, factor and
reliability testing.
The ethical considerations of the research assured participants of confidentiality,
anonymity and the gathering of data for research purposes only. No participant was treated
unfairly, unjustly or victimised as a result of this study.
RESULTS
This section will present the Marketing and Human Resources results.
Qualitative marketing results
Biographical data
The biographical data revealed that the majority (two thirds) of the participants were younger
than 20 years. The majority of the participants were female (57%) and 43 per cent were male.
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WIL benefits
Participants in this study indicated that they had benefited greatly from the DSA-UJ Project in
various ways. The referencing system that will be used with direct quotations will be Group 1
(G1) and Group 2 (G2). The participants felt that the Project was challenging but enjoyable, ‘I
treated the Project like a business and it forced me to communicate, something that may not
have happened otherwise’ (G2). ‘The Project gave me confidence and I was able to approach
strangers’ (G1).
The participants felt that the project added to their sales abilities, clerical abilities,
managerial skills and office skills, ‘You put into practice what you learn in the classroom’ (G1).
‘It gave me sales experience’ (G2).
Self-placement
With the DSA-UJ Project all the students (100%) chose their own company during an expo of
participating companies, therefore 100 per cent self-placement. The students overall enjoyed
the idea of selecting their own company, ‘I fit the company I chose’ (G1). ‘I could rise to the
challenge and extend my thinking’ (G2).
However, many of the students also felt that many times they did not know whom to
complain to if things went wrong, ‘I did not know whom to complain to in the company if I had
a query’ (G1). ‘Sometimes if there were delivery problems or product outages the company
didn’t take us seriously’ (G2).
Career prospects
The vast majority of respondents thought that the DSA-UJ Project advanced their career
prospects, ‘It removed the doubt I had in myself about my career’ (G1). ‘It gave me first-hand
experience of the sales industry and the work environment’ (G2). ‘It helped me build my CV’
(G2).
Quantitative HRM results
Biographical data
The biographical data revealed that the majority of the participants were between the ages of
20‒27 years. In this age group, 14 per cent were 24 years old, while the majority of the students,
(33%) were 23 years old; with 28 per cent at 22 years, and 13 per cent were 21 years old. The
majority of participants, (65%) were female and 34 per cent were male.
Govender and Wait Work Integrated Learning benefits for student career prospects
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WIL benefits
Section D of the survey questionnaire requested students to rate their responses to statements
on the benefits of their WIL experience as highly rewarding, rewarding, average, disappointing
or highly disappointing. The analysis revealed that 82 per cent of the students rated their entire
WIL experience as rewarding, with 53 per cent stating that their experience was highly
rewarding. While 10 per cent rated the entire WIL experience as average, 5 per cent found the
experience to be disappointing.
Furthermore, the study revealed that the WIL experience has significant benefits to
students in the areas of meeting managers, other staff, induction, tasks and theory-practical
linkages. Students rated the following areas as rewarding: first meeting with supervisor and/or
mentor (91%); first meeting with staff (85%); first meeting with manager/s (75%); orientation
and/or induction (81%); allocation of tasks and responsibilities (64%); and alignment to
module-specific outcomes (55%).
Moreover, when students were requested to complete the open-ended questions in Section
F, students described the benefits of their WIL experience in the following slogans:
Change (your) thoughts and (the) world.
Paving (my) way to success.
(Way) to a brighter future.
Hard work pays and don’t be afraid to learn.
Love what you do and (you) will do it right.
Sky is indeed the limit!’ so ‘ok, what’s next?
Self placement
Question 5 of Section B of the survey questionnaire requested students to respond to whether
they found placement themselves or were assisted by the university WIL Coordinator, or found
a workplace via some other means. The results reveal that 87 per cent of the students found
their own workplace to gain their WIL experience, resulting in a majority of the students
engaging in self-placement. Although no responses were recorded for institutional placement,
the 11 per cent who reported using other placement means included the name of the WIL
Coordinator as part of their responses, together with placement via peer and community
assistance. While 63 per cent of the students reported that finding an organisation to gain their
WIL experience was rewarding, 19 per cent rated the experience as disappointing, and 17 per
cent rated finding their own organisation as average. On the additional variable that measured
confirming their placement after they had found their organisation, 73 per cent of the students
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rated the experience as rewarding. While 19 per cent of the students rated that confirming their
placement was an average experience, 6 per cent rated it as disappointing.
The student slogans that best describe their placement experience as captured by this
quantitative study are as follows:
Embrace yourself (for self-placement)!
(Self-placement) bring(s) the workplace to students (versus placing students)
Early birds catches (the) fattest worms
‘(Forced) out of comfort zone’ but ‘fun way to learn’ in order to ‘meet the real world’
Self-placement is ‘For (my) greater good’.
Furthermore, in support of the self-placement approach, the study found that the time students
spent gaining their WIL experience far exceeded the minimum prescribed timespan of 20 hours
over 1 week. A majority of 56 per cent of the students served 40 hours in the workplace, while
24 per cent served for between 41 to 50 hours. Significantly, a further 7 per cent of students
spent over 50 hours in the workplace for their WIL experience.
Career prospects
On the question of whether students would consider the organization in which they served their
WIL experience for further career prospects after graduation, 68 per cent of the students
responded that they would, and 13 per cent said that they would not. The reasons for selecting
the organisation as a potential future employer are as follows:
helpful, employees united, supportive, friendly, welcoming, enjoyed working in organisation,
worked well under pressure, worked well with, improved skills, challenging, has vacancies,
personality studies, future development plans, aligned to career objectives, field workaholic, good
organisation goals, positive culture, interesting, inspiring.
Those students who did not consider the organisation as a potential for future career prospects
cited the following reasons for their negative response:
full of critics, lack of resources, environment not pleasing, boring, too much politics, retail industry
not for me, employees not treated well, too much workload, not relevant.
On the question of whether students would recommend the organization from which they
gained their WIL experience to future HRM graduating students, 68 per cent responded
positively and 13 per cent negatively. The reasons cited by students for recommending the
organisation are as follows:
Govender and Wait Work Integrated Learning benefits for student career prospects
61
students were treated well, mentor was helpful, mentors are professional, assisted students, staff
supportive, better place to learn, HR needs fresh people, good communication, industry is
insightful, meet different people, growth opportunity.
The reasons for not recommending the organisation for future career prospects of future HRM
graduating students are as follows:
focus (is) on engineering, lacked HR support, (they were) unprepared for students, limited HR,
little experience (in HRM).
Student slogans that best describe the impact of their WIL experience on their future career
prospects are as follows:
‘Everything is possible’ when ‘building careers’, there are ‘unlimited opportunities’ for ‘entry to
workplace’ to gain ‘practical HR’ and realise that ‘HR is possible!’
‘Key to future workplace!’
‘Keep real and resolve disputes/gain information’ as ‘work experience is a prerequisite’ and
‘practise makes perfect’, especially if you put ‘knowledge to work’ and ‘experience the world of
workers’.
An overall bird’s eye-view of the responses of students in the quantitative survey is that the
WIL project improved their ‘strategic thinking’ and it encouraged students to ‘WIL yourself’,
‘believe in me’ and be ‘managers for a week’, while having a ‘fantastic’, ‘excellent’, ‘enriching’
and ‘fun’ experience.
DISCUSSION
This section of the article reports on the triangulated interpretation and sense-making of the
interdisciplinary, mixed mode analysis of the results of both the independent, discipline specific
qualitative and quantitative studies. A comparative analysis of both studies allowed the
researchers to arrive at similar and profoundly significant findings. These triangulated findings
will be discussed for each of the research objectives as follows: benefits of WIL projects, WIL
self-placemen, and career prospect benefits.
Biographical results
In both studies females are in the majority (Marketing 57%; HRM 66%). These findings are
aligned to the demographical statistics of the country (SA 2015). The majority of the students
in the HRM study were much older (20‒27 years), while in the Marketing study the majority
of the students were younger than 20 years. This finding is attributed to the fact that the
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Marketing students were in their second year of study compared to the HRM students who were
in their final year of study.
Identified benefits of WIL projects
The findings of both the Marketing and HRM studies indicated that the majority of the students
benefited from their WIL experiences. Overall, the students in both these studies indicated that
they had rewarding experiences and have acquired enhanced knowledge and skills needed for
their separate disciplines.
These findings are in line with similar studies conducted by Orrell (2004), McLennan and
Keating (2008), Freudenberg, Brimble and Vyvyan (2010) and Cooper, Colin and Gordon
(2010) who state that students are to derive several benefits from WIL experiences, namely,
development of relevant discipline specific skills, personal attributes, and communicative
abilities.
Rewards of self-placement
The vast majority of the students in both the Marketing (100%) and HRM (87%) studies
indicated that they found their own placement for serving their WIL experiences. Furthermore,
in both studies students expressed that they enjoyed the self-placement technique, even though
they were initially nervous about this approach.
These findings are in line with the work of Gribble et al. (2014) that states that the most
significant influence of a student’s future career is WIL placement. This is also in line with the
findings of Govender and Taylor (2015) who emphasise self-placement as an essential tool for
empowering students from the beginning of the WIL project.
Choices for future career prospects
The vast majority of students in both studies felt that their respective WIL projects advanced
their career prospects enormously and may have removed any doubt about their choice of
disciplines. Some students indicated that they worked very well in their organisations of choice
due to the fact that what they had studied in class, was now made relevant and practical by their
WIL experience.
These findings are in line with Gamble, Patrick and Peach (2010) and Gribble et al. (2014)
who posit that critical thinking and intellectual reflection occur when cognitive abilities are
tested and tried in an authentic workplace environment.
Govender and Wait Work Integrated Learning benefits for student career prospects
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CONCLUSION
Many articles abound on WIL benefits, as was evident in the literature review of this article.
Research of WIL projects is normally discipline specific, and transdisciplinary WIL research is
scarce. This article provides insight into a transdisciplinary approach to comparing, analysing
and triangulating two different disciplinary specific WIL studies. This article contributed to the
knowledge that although silo-based WIL research studies flourish, transdisciplinary WIL
triangulation papers which have many common findings, are still in their infancy.
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