Professional practice and construction undergraduates' employability skills

Employability skills are known to be valuable to undergraduates when entering the workplace and expected by employers, yet, in construction as in many disciplines, these skills often are not well developed. However, construction professionals frequently work in complex dynamic environments and employability skills may enhance undergraduates' practitioner effectiveness. Therefore it is important tutors exploit opportunities to help undergraduates develop their employability skills. This paper examines the extent to which built environment undergraduates in a post-1992 university have opportunity to develop their employability skills through assessment. Data was gathered from students' evaluation of their development of employability skills and from written assessment feedback provided by tutors to students. Thematic analysis of the data was undertaken. Findings suggest students have limited understanding of employability skills and tutors give limited attention to their development. The examination of written feedback supported this latter point - tutors' major concerns were to develop students' subject knowledge and academic skills. It seems, then, promoting development of built environment students' employability skills may be an underused aspect of undergraduate learning provision. This suggests enhancing the student - tutor assessment dialogue offers the opportunity to better prepare students for industry and their professional practice.