The Impact of Commercial Involvement on the Development of Academic Processes, Employability Skills Development and On the Quality of Outcomes: KONE Case Study

Many scholars suggest that employability must be “re-envisioned” and better integrated within Higher Education and that authentic assessment has a role to play in this. To address this, GSM partnered with KONE, a multinational engineering firm, to increase employability amongst students through the use of live project. The project involved 150 final year students completing a credit-bearing assessment to meet a genuine business need for KONE. Pre and post-project semi structured interviews and surveys were used to measure students’ employability skills development. The research findings demonstrated a positive impact of commercial business involvement on the formation and development of a range of skills. However, the overall impact of the project on employability skills development was weaker than expected due to a number of factors, including the characteristics of the widening participation student body.