Browsing by Subject "integratiivinen pedagogiikka"

Objectives. The aim of this study was to examine what kind of working life skills students had learned during their Bachelor’s level studies according to their own experiences. Working life skills are skills and abilities, which are applicable in a range of contexts and tasks and are learned while completing disciplinary content studies. According to previous studies university studies contribute to the development of students’ working life skills to some extent but they do not necessarily provide all the skills required at the labour market. The second purpose of this study was to examine what kind of learning experiences had supported the development of the students working life skills during their Bachelor’s level studies according to their own experiences. In previous studies students’ working life skills have developed especially in the instruction/courses emphasizing experiential learning. Methods. The study is based on narrative research methods and the data were collected by utilising the narrative interviews from six students at Aalto University. The interviewed students had completed Aaltonaut minor program at Aalto Design Factory during their Bachelor’s level studies. A one-question interview technique was applied in the interviews. The interviews were analysed with narrative analysis and analysis of narrative. Results and conclusions. Students reported that during their Bachelor’s level studies, they had learned working life skills related especially to social and communication skills. These skills were, for example, teamwork, oral communication and presentation skills. Students perceived that they had also learned working life skills, such as entrepreneurial mindset and innovative thinking, as well as the ability to reflect on their own learning and knowledge and confidence about their own expertise. According to the findings of this study, students experienced that basic and major studies in their Bachelor’s degrees developed their working life skills narrowly. These studies contributed mainly to their working life skills related to teamwork, information retrieval and scientific research. The students perceived that their working life skills developed especially through the learning experiences, which were based on concrete experiences. In the Bachelor’s level studies, these kind of learning experiences were mainly offered by the Aaltonaut minor programme.