abstract: 'Preparing students for employment involves encouraging ownership of

  their employability and engagement in opportunities that can help them

  improve it. Industrial placements play an important role in this but

  declining numbers of students are undertaking them. Using data collected

  over a three-year period at a Business School in a UK university, this

  paper will explore an intervention based on nudge theory designed to

  increase the uptake of these placements. Drawing upon behavioural

  science, it will explore nudge theory and its criticisms. It will

  discuss the concept of employability, including the tensions between the

  necessity of promoting students'' ownership of theirs and the inherent

  assumptions that they will engage in opportunities to achieve this.

  Critical assessment of how the nudge intervention worked will be

  provided, demonstrating how almost half of those `nudged'' responded

  positively, thereby successfully increasing the uptake of placements. It

  will identify soft outcomes, notably the breaking down of some typical

  behavioural barriers to placements and encouraging students to think

  reflectively. It will offer recommendations for replicable practice in

  other universities; specifically a model for developing nudges not only

  in relation to employability but within higher education more broadly.

  It concludes by proposing a new pedagogic definition of employability.'
affiliation: 'Forder, C (Corresponding Author), Univ Brighton, Brighton Business Sch,
  Brighton, E Sussex, England.

  Fowlie, Julie; Forder, Clare, Univ Brighton, Brighton Business Sch, Brighton, E
  Sussex, England.'
author: Fowlie, Julie and Forder, Clare
author-email: c.l.forder@brighton.ac.uk
author_list:
- family: Fowlie
  given: Julie
- family: Forder
  given: Clare
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1080/13639080.2020.1749247
earlyaccessdate: APR 2020
eissn: 1469-9435
files: []
issn: 1363-9080
journal: JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND WORK
keywords: Employability; nudge theory; higher education; work placement
keywords-plus: 'HIGHER-EDUCATION; GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY; SKILLS DEVELOPMENT; WORK

  PLACEMENTS; PERCEPTIONS; EXPERIENCE; CHOICE; FUTURE'
language: English
month: FEB 17
number: '2'
number-of-cited-references: '90'
orcid-numbers: 'Forder, Clare/0000-0002-6658-2707

  Fowlie, Julie/0000-0003-1131-7612'
pages: 154-168
papis_id: a999b6bc3dce3f8054957e41249240b2
ref: Fowlie2020canstudents
researcherid-numbers: Fowlie, Julie/G-6029-2015
times-cited: '3'
title: Can students be `nudged' to develop their employability? Using behavioural
  change methods to encourage uptake of industrial placements
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000525108900001
usage-count-last-180-days: '1'
usage-count-since-2013: '55'
volume: '33'
web-of-science-categories: Education \& Educational Research
year: '2020'