Work placements and academic achievement: undergraduate computing students

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate and understand whether students who complete a work placement as part of their degree course achieve a better classification of degree than those students who do not include a placement. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted by extracting the profiles of computing students from the database of a UK based university. Data collected included the marks and academic performance throughout the course of the students’ degree, educational background, age and gender. In total, the profiles of 290 students were analysed to understand the impact of a work placement on their degree. Findings The results show that 58 per cent of those students who had been on a work placement achieved an upper second or first class degree, whereas only 37 per cent of non‐placement students achieved the same academic standards. Furthermore, this study also established that this result is not because work placement students are academically more capable to begin with, as originally believed by many researchers. Practical implications Direction for further research would involve investigating different cohorts of students and in different subject areas. However, the initial findings from this study could be used as a starting point in an attempt to encourage students to include a work placement as part of their degree. Originality/value Rather than simply performing a comparison of degree classifications between the placement and non‐placement students, this study goes further and investigates student performance during their entire three or four year degree course. Furthermore, this study also considers influences such as age, gender and educational background on the results.