Investigating the use and understanding of the term 'employability' by different stakeholders

‘Employability’ is the term that Higher Education uses to prepare students for the world of employment after their studies. There are various definitions and emphases within the literature used to reflect different approaches and values attached to the purpose of Higher Education. Informal discussions have raised the question as to the accessibility of the term ‘employability’ to students, employers and Faculty staff linked to our education programmes within the Faculty. Given the increasing importance of preparing students for their careers following their undergraduate studies with the introduction of the Graduate Outcomes survey and its use as a metric to measure the quality of higher education a small scale research project is being undertaken to investigate this further. In short, the aim of the research is to identify the understanding that our stakeholders have of the term ‘employability’ and whether an alternative term should be used and we are very grateful for your assistance in this.

Investigating what the term 'employability' means to graduate employers, academic staff, university staff and students.