Employability Sabbaticals: Experience of ‘Boundary Crossing’

1. Employability Sabbaticals: Experience of ‘Boundary Crossing’ Elena ZAITSEVAE.Zaitseva@ljmu.ac.uk Elizabeth MITCHELL E.Mitchell1@ljmu.ac.uk

2. Summary • LJMU Centre for Excellence in Employability, Leadership and Professional Learning • Employability sabbaticals’ program from ‘Boundary Crossing’ theory perspective • Two case studies and research method • Findings • Conclusions

3. LJMU CETL… • Subject focus: sport, dance, exercise and physical activity • Themes: employability, leadership, entrepreneurship • Organisational structure: departments based in two Faculties (Science & Education) • Research & evaluation focus

4. LJMU CETL…

5. LJMU CETL…

6. Employability of Sport Science Graduates • Career pathways are often not well defined • Many qualifications in sport are relatively new and employers are often unaware of the knowledge and skills the graduates are equipped with • Placement experience is seen as critical in developing students’ practical experience and skills and for informing career choice

7. Employability sabbaticals • Aims: to provide staff with dedicated time to work directly with employers in order to: • better understand the labour market, job roles and responsibilities • ‘fine tune’ the curriculum to reflect the knowledge and skills demanded by employers

8. Communities of Practice (CoP) and ‘Boundary crossing’ theory • CoP: a group of individuals participating in communal activity, and experiencing/continuously creating their shared identity through engaging in and contributing to the practices of their communities(Lave and Wenger,1991) • Boundaries historically exist between CoP • Important to maintain connection with other relevant communities - this is where ‘boundary crossing’ happens

9. CoP and ‘Boundary crossing’ theory • Boundary crossing is enabled by ‘boundary objects’ (Wenger, 1998) • Brokers’ make connections across CoP, facilitate coordination and open new possibilities for new meanings (Tuomi-Grohn,2003)

10. Theory of ‘strong and weak ties’ • Strong and weak ties are conceptualising the bonds which exist between members of a society (Granovetter, 1983, Haythornthwaite, 2002 ) • Strong ties: mainly exist between close colleagues, friends and family or in a relatively close CoP (emotional bonds and confirmation) • Weak ties:  play a part in the dissemination of ideas between communities, thus facilitating information exchange between networks of strong ties. Important for getting jobs • Strength of the ties between CoPplays an important role in successful ‘boundary crossing’

11. Case Study A – Sabbatical in Physical Activity, Exercise and Health • Sabbatical (one semester long) is aimed to: • Enhance employability skills provision within the BSc degree programme • Find out about the knowledge, skills, personal attributes, required of individuals working in these areas • 3 stages: preparation, visits/semi-structured interviews, final questionnaire

12. Case Study B – Football Science • Sabbatical is aimed to: • Ensure that curriculum contains appropriate opportunities for the development of employability skills • Explore possibilities for more dedicated placements for students • Examine career pathways of staff within football-related organisations • Strong ‘knowledge transfer’ component to the sabbatical

13. Case Study B – Football Science • Organisational context: • Placements within one year sabbatical varied from one to two weeks in duration • Each placement had specific objectives to achieve depending on the profile of the host organisation • Lecturer posted blogs to give students immediate access to the information

14. Research Questions and Method • How the experience of ‘transfer’ from one CoP to another was perceived by sabbatical holders • Interim finding that could have an impact on the academic CoP (curriculum, staff development etc) • Research method: series ofsemi-structured interviews

15. Findings: Preparation and time commitment • ‘Weak ties’ and wrong ‘boundary object’ in case of sabbatical A - difficulties in establishing contact • ‘Strong ties’ in case of B - easy to arrange visits • ‘Cognitive retooling’ was time consuming • A: Although sabbatical has not produced a double load, it has been heading in that direction… • B:I may be in a football club from 8 in the morning till possibly 10 at night if I am going to games… • …Switching from sabbatical mood to administrative mood and trying to jungle things is difficult…

16. Findings: Maintaining Links with own CoP • …There isn’t one visit that I go on where I don’t come back and say to [a colleague] “I found this out, this would be really great, can we do something about this? • Interaction with students had an impact on the process and content of the enquiry (Sab B) • Both lecturers felt isolated and detached because of the inability to share immediate findings and emotional experiences

17. Findings: ‘boundary objects’ chosen • Proved to be very successful (job roles, responsibilities in case of A and knowledge transfer (KT) in case of B) • KT helped to gain access to a traditionally closed environment of football clubs • Role of ‘broker’ proved to be more complex/multidimensional (KT happened on vertical and horizontal levels)

18. Findings: Impact on the Curriculum and WBL opportunities • Sabbatical A • Enriched and re-considered understanding of students’ employability • Development of a skills ‘checklist ’ • The difference in interpretation/definition of the skills • New assessment strategies, practice based modules, placements opportunities

19. Findings: Impact on the Curriculum and WBL opportunities • Sabbatical B • More realistic vision of employment in football and limitations of the university programme • Insights in the career pathways • Reaffirming importance of practical experience through work based/related learning and volunteering

21. Findings: Fulfilment of Initial Expectations and Issues • High level of satisfaction in relation to what was achieved • Communication issues • Issues of academic identity and role conflict

22. Findings: Fulfilment of Initial Expectations and Issues …There are days when I enjoy it and there are days when it is so utterly depresses me I just don’t want to be around those places… It goes from a real kind of spread of feelings, because … you see situations that you just know people aren’t able to cope with…People make decisions … when maybe they are not in a place to make them. I can see it is so complicated… With my skill base which is maybe better than some of these people… That’s hard to watch sometimes, I think…

23. Conclusions • Sabbaticals can be a very effective tool of ‘boundary crossing’ between academic and employers’ CoP • Academic CoP: More realistic understanding of students’ employability; new partnerships,learning resources, curricula changes • Offer space and time to make a difference • Issues: ‘real’ practice - ‘ideal’ academic world; • time consuming, perceived isolation

24. Future plans • Implementation of the curriculum changes (evaluation) • Establishing a forum/network for sabbatical holders • Further research focused on how sabbaticals impacted on the employers (impact on their CoP)