Employability of university graduates: The role of academic competences, learning and work experience in the successful transition from university to working life

The main aim of this doctoral thesis was to explore university graduates’ employability and transition to working life. The first aim was to explore graduates’ evaluations of their academic competences, their confidence in success in working life and usefulness of work experience, and what kind of profiles can be identified based on the evaluations. The second aim was to explore the interrelations between academic competences and approaches to learning. Thirdly, the purpose was to investigate the relation between work experience, approaches to learning and study success. The fourth aim was to explore graduates’ evaluations of the usefulness of their degree and career success three years after graduation. The fifth aim was to explore what kinds of challenges graduates have encountered in working life. This thesis consists of four studies. It was a longitudinal study and applied a mixed-methods approach. Data included 1023 survey answers and 83 interviews at the time of graduation and followup survey data (N=57) (including open answers) three years after graduation. In addition, study success information was gathered from the Student Register. The results of Study I showed variation in graduates’ descriptions and evaluations and four profiles were identified (rich descriptions/high confidence, rich desriptions/low confidence, limited desriptions/high confidence, limited descriptions/low confidence) based on the richness of the evaluations of academic competences provided by the graduates and how confident they were in their future success in working life. In addition, graduates with rich descriptions of their academic competences perveived their work experience more useful for their studies than graduates with limited evaluations of competences. In order to understand evaluations of academic competences more profoundly, Study II investigated the relationship between academic competences and approaches to learning. The results of Study II revealed that a deep approach to learning and organised studying, especially putting effort into learn competences, was related to the richness of the evaluations of competences. Furthermore, Study II showed that a deep approach to learning had stronger relations with academic competences than do other approaches (surface approach and organised studying). It also showed that graduates with rich evaluations of their academic competences were more satisfied with their university degree. The results of Study III showed that approaches to learning are important factor to take into account when exploring the relation between work experience and study success. The results showed that academic work was related to a deep approach to learning and non-academic work was related to a surface approach to learning and unorganised studying. In addition, own academic work had a direct negative relation to study pace when working more than 20 hours per week as well as doing more 20 hours of non-academic work per week had a negative relation to the thesis grade. Study IV showed that graduates with rich descriptions of their competences at the time of graduation had more often academic work that was related to their study field and had experienced less difficulties related to employment after graduation compared to the graduates with more limited descriptions of their competences. In addition, study showed that after three years of graduation, collaboration and communication competences were evaluated as being less developed than they evaluated at the time of graduation. The results of Study IV also revealed that most of the challenges that graduates reported having encountered in working life were related to a need for more academic competences, especially presentation and social competences. In conclusion, this doctoral thesis provides new information on the factors that are related to employability and it extended previous employability models by adding aspect of learning as a single dimension. Furthermore, it showed individual differences in graduates’ perceptions of their employability. This doctoral thesis indicates that the ability to evaluate and describe one’s own competences at the time of graduation is an important factor for employability and career success. The findings demonstrate that employability is also related to students’ learning, and thus, it can be enhanced by improving the quality of student learning. This doctoral thesis indicates that a mixedmethods approach is needed to explore graduates’ employability and especially competences more profoundly.