Abstract:

The policy of the University west is to apply work integrated learning in its education. That is why, the WIL should be applied, in different courses. In different courses should teachers describe how they are applying the “WIL-element”. But what is WIL is not defined clearly. It is left to the teachers to define it. It leads to confusion and uncertainty in what WIL-element actually is. For this reason it is of great importance to discuss the meaning of WIL.

The purpose of the study is to define what WIL is, to show how it can be applied in education and to contribute, to theoretical development of WIL, which can lead to improvement of its application as well as students employability.

Research questions: What is work-integrated learning? How it can be achieved? Does it affect employability? What are its advantages and disadvantages?

Part one is introduction and background description, purpose and research question. Part two deals with description of concepts and presentation of the theoretical framework for the study. Work-integrated learning has been defined differently and in different ways. But, what is common for all of them is combination of theory and practice or academia and work/work-place i.e. procurement of knowledge acquired and generated in work-place.
In part three, the approach and design of the study is discussed.
In part four, empirical data is presented, including observations, document studies, etc.
Part five is about discussion and conclusions. When discussing WIL, focus and emphases primarily on the workplace and experiential learning. While at University West, focus is on theoretical learning in the first place, i.e. focus is not on the workplace. The focus is on the learning that happens at the university and how it should be linked to practice and workplace. This means that the starting point is from the opposite side. Another aspect is that the perception of WIL is vague and not precise. There is no connection between different WIL-moments in different courses. That makes it impossible to judge and determine whether the goals have been achieved or not. There is another essential question; Does and can WIL contribute to employability? Further advantages and disadvantages of the perception and application of WIL at the University West are discussed at the end of the paper.

Keywords:

Learning, Work-integrated learning, learning as process, knowledge generated in work-place, WIL and employability.