Internationally educated professionals (IEPs) encounter significant barriers to entry to their professions upon immigrating. Obtaining education in the new country is an effective means of improving their positions. While universities emphasize the need to attract and serve adult learners and a more diverse clientele, the specific needs of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the relative effects of participation in cooperative education (co-op) and engagement in reflection upon previous work experiences on undergraduate students' vocational self-concept (VSC) at graduation. Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey of graduating students (n = 1,483) from a…

On the basis of the role and the social exchange theories, this research investigated the direct and indirect antecedents of three dimensions of team performance (proficiency, adaptivity, proactivity) developed through cooperative education. The theoretical model examined how proactive socialization behaviors led to team socialization and team…

There is currently more focus than ever on the importance of earning a college degree. At the same time, many students and parents are dubious that America's expensive, one-size-fits-all higher education system can adequately educate students for an ever more diverse and sophisticated world of work. There are other educational options that are…

Industries in every state are struggling to find qualified applicants for jobs, while job seekers too often find they lack the skills needed to enter or move along a career pathway to a good job. Preparing a workforce that is poised to meet the needs of businesses and ultimately to make the state more economically competitive is a top priority for…

The last 3 decades have witnessed the rise of reforms aimed at conjoining Canadian universities to the economic system. Critics have pointed out how reforms have emphasized economic utility in universities to the detriment of their sociocultural mission, producing negative effects. One curricular innovation that has spread in tandem with reforms…

Since the release and implementation of the Outline of the National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010-20), Sino-foreign cooperative education has achieved great progress, gradually entering a new phase of high-level model development. At the same time, the profound conflicts and issues accumulated over the years…

A number of factors influence the motivations of employers to train their workforce and the ways in which they engage with the training system. This study combines a national survey and interviews with Australian employers and registered training organisations (RTOs) to provide a comprehensive picture of the way in which employers navigate the…

This project examined the role of cooperative education (co-op) in changing majors and career certainty in Canadian university students. Career certainty scores were collected using an online questionnaire from students in both cooperative education and non-cooperative education. The frequency with which students changed their major and their…

This study was conducted to identify challenges and potential strategies to streamline work-integrated learning placements for multidisciplinary teams of students undertaking degrees in sustainability. Face-to-face interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire were conducted with 15 academics and senior university staff, from four universities…

This article reports on a phenomenological study conducted in 2013 to investigate co-op learning from the students' perspectives. 104 seniors were interviewed who had completed one to three periods of co-op employment. A stratified purposeful sample with proportional representation of six university colleges was used. Using a standardized,…

The German Dual System is a model educational and employment approach that other nations could emulate. The ability of young apprentices to work and study at the same time to gain both practical and theoretical skills leads to more meaningful education and decreased dropout and youth unemployment rates. The collaboration of the government,…

The ability to evaluate and accurately articulate the outcomes associated with leadership development programs is critical to their continued financial and administrative support. With calls for outcome-based accountability, the need for rigorous evaluation is particularly relevant for those programs administered through the Cooperative Extension…

The basic relationships among scale, quality, and benefits in Sino-foreign cooperative education are key to the development of cooperative education. It is necessary to construct a theoretical framework for the basic relationships among scale, quality, and benefits in Sino-foreign cooperative education and analyze the questions faced in…

This formative intervention documents the emergence of a hybrid activity aiming at student engagement and academic achievement. In this context-bound study, early stages of this activity consisted in establishing PénArt meant to enable high school students with difficulties to start up their own business at school. It involved reaching agreements…