BSc Psychology, preparing for
and entering the graduate world
Paper 126
HEA STEM Conference, Edinburgh
30 April – 1 May 2014
Peter Reddy, Rachel Shaw and
Elisabeth Moores
School of Life and Health Sciences
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
• Semi-structured interviews focusing on experiences related to
graduating in psychology
• Case-by-case analysis focusing on individual cares and
concerns
• Small number (5)
– range of academic grades
– all female home students
– varied in terms of campus resident or not, ethnicity, disability
status, academic success
– four out of five took a sandwich placement year
– professional (esp. clinical) Psychology an ambition for most
Broad context
• Salience of ‘employability’ in psychology and in HE generally
• Reflection on the purpose and structure of BSc psychology
in US (Halpern, 2010) and UK (Trapp and Upton, 2011)
• Value of work experience sandwich placement and how its
known benefits are enacted
• Interest in learning, growth and development at the graduate
transition
The placement
•
Suzie: I think it was an eye opener and it reassured how you applied theory to
practice. It’s completely different learning about it in books … when I was on
placement the expectations just shot through the roof…
•
Nadia: I had such a terrible placement experience…I wanted to leave …felt very
personally attacked …self conscious…uneasy, I couldn’t speak to her …making
me feel really incompetent at my job…really worthless as a person…there’s so
much control…very traumatic… being ill…having days off because I just didn’t
want to see her.
•
I don’t think I would have got as high mark as I did having not gone through that
experience. …it really focused and drove me … it was kind of proving myself
and that I’m not stupid, I’m not incompetent, I can work.
•
(...learned most from?) … my placement, without a shadow of a doubt …it
really has taught me so much.
Expectations
•
Nadia:
– … so I started working and I absolutely love it …and I no longer
feel like a student …I’m really looking forward to like my journey
into like the world of working, finding a career, doing something that
I enjoy and I’ve got my first pay cheque as well, brilliant.
– …meeting people and feeling like an adult and …I’m really, really
enjoying it.
•
Louise:
– … with the placement … I had a lot more support because it was
almost like [the university] had instigated that placement … you’re
coaxed into it, there was a of build up to it and so it was almost like
I was guaranteed to get that placement….. I did visit the careers
service a fair few times … but it was almost like, it was you know, it
was down to me to find a job.
Expectations 2
• Louise is active and entrepreneurial but has some passive
expectations
– things are expected to ‘materialise’,
– others to ‘coax’ her into openings
• A sense of disappointment, feeling let down, having unfulfilled
career expectations, being baffled and frustrated, uncertainty of
the value of investing in a university education
– Yes, I’ve stayed in touch with a handful of people to see what
they’re up to, the majority of them haven’t found employment from
what I can gain.
Social comparison
•
Louise compares herself with a friend who did not go to university
•
…it feels like I’m a step behind … although I’ve got a degree which in
theory might really should put me …. ahead of the game … I’m not. …
and … its predominantly … experience that they’ve got. … maybe I
shouldn’t have gone to Uni then, maybe I should have just got some
proper experience and got stuck into a 9.00 to 5.00 job rather than
going into education. … It just makes you question like what you’ve
invested in
•
Assumptions
– Graduate status puts you ahead automatically and entitles you to
apply for a higher grade of jobs not open to non-graduates
– The University will make this happen, rather like a job centre
Identity
•
Louise … the reason I feel a different person is because I don’t know
what person I am. Like, I know I’m different but like why am I different
and to what extent, there are still things I need to discover which,
again, being at work and getting into a role and enjoying it will,
hopefully, develop who I am and what I’m going to be in like, in a
business.
•
But I don’t think I’ve experienced a long enough period of work to
establish, like, who I am in that situation. I know who I am as a student
and I know what I’m capable of like that, but no, at the moment I’m a
person... I’m in limbo, it’s like trying to put some roots down and make
the most of them, you know, I haven’t quite done that so...
Incomplete / denied identity
– Suzie finds it ‘slightly depressing’ that she is still working at a
supermarket and that ‘I haven’t moved anywhere’ and ‘I don’t
really know what to call myself’
– … her identity now? She responds crisply ‘No idea’ . I think that
she does identify with her chosen profession of clinical psychology
and cherishes evidence of her own competence, but is denied full
identity by her non-professional status, an in-between-ness that is
common to all graduates aspiring to professional status. This
identification with professional status has the potential for hubris as
full identity may be denied – hence ‘no idea’.
– Nadia: I don’t really feel defined yet… that I’ve really carved out
anything for myself…I think your career definitely defines you.
Becoming
•
Nadia: I was so scared initially. … because I was thinking I don’t know
what I want to do…
•
I’m having to learn to become a little bit more chilled out and just let
things be …and in a couple of year’s time you might not want to go
down the career you wanted to at 22, and that’s fine…
•
… it’s the pressure from everybody else as well …. as soon as you
leave it's like, ok, what are you going to do… They’ll want to know
everything… your whole 10 year 15 year life plan… and they just think
well why did you do psychology … I don’t have all the answers yet and
it’s ok not to have all the answers.
Clinical psychology
•
•
•
•
•
•
Dominates career aspirations –
positioned as the best career, and for
the best
placement year seen as a way to
short-cut competition for graduate
assistant posts
placement raises aspirations - a red
rag to the ambitious & able
what students mean by psychology?
staff want all to be ambitious and to
have opportunities
exposes poverty of students’ careers
thinking; need wider models
“I think we have been really pushed
into (it)… a careers talk … that’s
when it started … very, very early on
in my degree.
…when you do your placement, and
you see people who are in that
career … and they’re telling you, you
know, we’ve done it, you can do it,
and it’s having those people telling
you that, that really pushes you...
It definitely… was put on a pedestal
as… this is one of the big jobs you
can do… …one of those jobs that it’s
so rewarding. …it can grow into you
that clinical is the best of the best
and if you achieve that you really
have made it.
Self-assurance, confidence, focus
Suzie: …it's … a very tough time to graduate … but I think I've got what it takes
•
Is there a ‘plan B’ in case clinical ambitions fail?
– No, it will work. I’m optimistic about that one thing
– …that’s what the plan is, get experience in load of different areas
but there’s no rush if I get there in 10 years, fine. You know, I’m 22
in August and if I get there when I’m 30 fine I’ll have no problems
•
She is aware of her ability and skills
– … yes I can do it, yes I’m very capable, give me the money …
– … I’m willing to take those kinds of gambles; I’m willing to take
those risks to get to where I need to be …
– … I think clinical psychology is definitely for me. You've got the
record if five years down the line I’ve changed my mind completely
Focus and dedication, proactivity, planning,
ambition, attention to detail
•
… I’m working six days so I’m pretty exhausted. I only started last week ...
When I think of it I did a placement for nine months working at the supermarket
two days, working at the placement for four days, so I did six days a week for
about nine months so when I think about it, you know, it’s do-able
•
… to get this experience … I started setting this up from August. (Ten months
earlier) As soon as I came out of my placement I was out there looking for more
stuff. It’s only recently that they recruited some people then I thought they could
start my induction at the same time with these people and, also, I didn’t want to
be doing this while I had a dissertation and exams and … So actually I’d got my
CRB in March … and only got in touch in the exams to say ok I’m finally ready
now.
•
She had arranged voluntary work, including her CRB check, months in advance
in order to be ready to start as her exams ended.
Discomfort with her own competence?
•
Embarrassment that competitor-colleagues are disorganised.
•
Distress at the conflict between being both colleague and competitor
– between professional empathy and care and the competitiveness needed to
get a job and a clinical training place.
– Nadia: … maybe you have to be really ruthless …really determined and
competitive and driven and all that, and sometimes …you might not be such
a nice person to be around but maybe you have to, to make it in the world
•
May blame the unsuccessful as feckless to defend against acknowledging own
success as highly organised, competitiveness, even ruthlessness.
•
May even be a Groucho Marx element – not wanting to be a member of a club
that would accept me as a member
– clinical psychology may be less worth aspiring to if they are so impressed by
little old me!
Developmental context
•
Levinson (1978, 1996) Early adulthood: 17 to 45
– Early adult transition: 17 to 22
– Entering the adult world: 22 to 28
•
Transition between eras can take 3 to 6 years to complete. Within the broad
eras are periods of development, each characterized by a set of tasks and an
attempt to build or modify our life structure.
•
A theme throughout every period is the ‘Dream.’ It has a vision-like quality, it is
an imagined possibility generating excitement and vitality. It is a projection of
our ideal life and we are always becoming in relation to it. The place and nature
of the dream is modified and revised throughout life as the imagined self is
compared with the world as we live through it.
– (Tennant and Pogson,1995)
Developmental tasks
•
In the Early Adult Transition the main task is to move out of the preadult world and take a first step into the adult world.
•
Constructing adulthood – these issues likely to feature
– Own life, meaning, direction
• Career – quotidian (9-5) graduate profession
– Financial independence
• Salary
– Emotional independence
• Life partner
• Children, own family
– Own home
• Mortgage
Leaving university – a major transition
•
Choices and self-creation – chaotic, unstructured & open ended
relative to UCAS and university entry
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
•
Career choice?
Temporary job?
Straight to work?
Postgraduate course?
Go travelling?
Live back home?
Move in with partner?
As many losses as when joined university?
– Youth
– Freedom and protection of student identity
– University friends, student life
• not forgetting debt
Is teaching for employability a betrayal of the
university tradition?
•
The idea of liberal education is notoriously ambiguous but Newman
defended it in the 19th Century from the kind of utilitarianism satirised
by Dickens in Hard Times
– Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts.
Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything
else. You can only form the mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing
else will ever be of any service to them.
•
Includes the idea that the pursuit of knowledge brings liberation from
dogma and illusion, and develops epistemic virtues
•
Barnett (2009) suggests that we talk now of skills rather than
knowledge but that learning and understanding (making knowledge
your own) has implications for being and becoming
Barnett (2009) Knowing and becoming in the
higher education curriculum
• Argues that knowledge and skills do not offer a secure
foundation, the world is super-complex and everything is
debatable – need to add being.
• Exposure to discipline-based HE may help form the dispositions
and qualities needed
• The focus is on pedagogy rather than knowledge
• Aims to elicit the dispositions and qualities that enable students
to appropriate curriculum themselves and create their own
meaning and understanding
Discussion
•
Aim to illuminate experience and reflect on what psychology
programmes might do in facilitating personal development and
employability.
•
In Levinson’s terms leaving the early adult transition and beginning to
enter the adult world.
– Does the ‘dream’ of clinical psychology matter? If not this dream
Levinson implies there will be another. What happens to these
unrealised dreams and dreamers?
•
How can ‘being and becoming’ influence the curicullum?