A research evaluation of the impact of compulsory career coaching for final year undergraduates of Business Management and Accounting

Christie, Fiona ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1384-3683 and Allen, Maria ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7735-4080 (2019) A research evaluation of the impact of compulsory career coaching for final year undergraduates of Business Management and Accounting. In: Society for Research into Higher Education Annual Conference 2019, 11 December 2019 - 13 December 2019, Celtic Manor, Newport.

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Abstract

Universities adopt many strategies to support their students’ employability/career development. However, very little in depth research explores what students report learning from the interventions they experience and if it is possible to trace impact on eventual outcomes. This paper focuses on research about an innovative employability intervention in which students took part in compulsory individual and group career coaching in their final year of study. The paper reflects on whether students value such employability and career development interactions, and if any associations can be made between engagement in such activities and levels of career decidedness. It will have implications for both policy and practice in universities, and raise questions about the feasibility/desirability of scaling up personalised support. Theoretically the paper is informed by career development and graduate employability literature which seeks to consider both contextual and individual factors influencing career outcomes (Artess, Hooley, & Mellors-Bourne, 2017; Tomlinson & Holmes, 2016).