Abstract:
Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is often hailed for leveraging students’ swift
and flexible adaptation to organisational work demands and accentuating the relevance of
knowledge acquired in academic environments to work contexts. However, an inclusive view
of WIL’s impact on students’ academic life, especially the broadening of their academic
competences, is often occluded by a selective approach to WIL, which emphasises employers’
professional expectations and ignores the nature and process of competence development
of students.
Research purpose: To bridge the research gap created by employer-centred approaches,
this study explores particular South African University of Technology (UoT) ‘students’
perceptions’ on the influence of WIL programmes on the broadening of Office Management
and Technology (OMT) competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills and abilities).
Motivation for the study: To promote an alternative approach to unravelling OMT
competencies, which takes cognisance of the perceptions of students, who are the actual
participants in WIL.
Research design, approach and method: The study drew on a quantitative case study of 94 OMT
students from the UoT’s two campuses who had been successfully placed at 20 organisations in
South Africa.
Main findings: The findings demonstrated that students’ participation in WIL enhanced their
practical knowledge of space management, encouraged swift learning of work-based skills
and abilities as well as facilitated the transfer of these competencies across a wide range of
contexts, activities and tasks.
Practical and managerial implications: The strong correlation between course organisation
and WIL’s enhancement of space management knowledge, skills and abilities implies
that educators and employers need to place more emphasis not just on their delivery methods
but also on the selection and organisation of content, which is critical to such delivery.
Recommendations: The study recommended the strengthening of the entire WIL
conceptualisation and implementation process (i.e. content selection, content organisation,
teaching modalities and computer-assisted delivery) and its delivery regime to ensure sustained
improvement of student competencies.
