Attracting & Retaining Successful Tertiary Students
IQ isn’t a particularly good predictor of success at tertiary levels. On the other hand, conscientiousness is.
But it’s difficult to be conscientious without having suitable career goals, ie if students don’t know where they’re heading or why.
The British National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) conducted longitudinal study of 14,666 adolescents. It highlighted the importance of career exploration skills and noted that “Within the surveyed cohort, young people with a high level of such skills were the least likely to switch courses or drop-out of courses” (The Case for Careers Education and Guidance, NFER 2004). It went on to state that “Through the use of ICT, there is far more accessible information on courses, training and careers than at any time in the past. However, NFER’s research has shown that, without mediation such information can be at best confusing and at worst completely misleading”.
The research paper Pathways to Prosperity (Harvard Graduate School of Education, February 2011) makes the point that “Students drop out of high school and college for many reasons … but a major reason is that too many can’t see clear, transparent connection between their program of study and tangible opportunities in the labor market”. More.
A recent British research report noted that improving career guidance before students apply to university significantly cuts dropout rates. “According to a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills research paper that followed almost 106,000 students who applied to university in 2005-06, those who consulted only a few sources of advice when picking their degree course were far more likely to drop out by the end of their first year. More.
Job dissatisfaction is a problem for everyone: individuals, employers, families as well as the broader economy. It translates into poor productivity, lack of motivation, increased OSH risks, and missed opportunities. Australian research for example by NCVER (National Centre for Vocational Education Research) shows that “job dissatisfaction rises almost universally for those with post-school qualifications when they move to a mismatched job” More.
Building on extensive international research lead by the Careers Research Centre of Edinburgh University (UK), JIIG-CAL Australia has over twenty years of delivering high quality career planning software resources throughout Australia. Over that period more than 800 Australian schools, universities, TAFE colleges, job placement agencies. More than 250,000 Australian students and career seekers have used our online career solutions to develop realistic, suitable, and productive Australian career plans. Scientifically established reliability and validity of psychometric instruments and outcomes have been established both here in Australia and overseas, most notably the UK.
The mobile friendly software Career Voyage enables tertiary students to increase relevant career knowledge, skills, self-awareness and understanding of the critical factors required to develop good career decision-making. They are able to make realistic choices & career plans based on comprehensive and detailed career pathway suggestions generated by the software.
Career Voyage is suitable for individual career counselling or as an effective tool targeting prospective students when the software is embedded on a tertiary institution’s website.
Career Voyage software improves the motivation and success of the students while reducing attrition rates. Furthermore, the software embedded in websites:
- link prospective students’ choices of career pathways with course offerings
- adds value to tertiary institutions’ websites
- attracts more prospective students to the websites
- collects and collates critical data about prospective students
