First Career Destinations: The bigger picture'

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First Career Destinations The bigger
picture. Sherria Hoskins, Darren Van Laar,
Rachel Arratoon and Guy Townsin.
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What we plan to cover

• Background
• Introduction the data
• Some preliminary analysis on psychology graduates
• Where do we go from here
• Our plans
• Over to you

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Background

• First destinations league tables
• Introduction of tuition fees in 2006
• Universities professional bodies need to be
  proactive
• How degree subjects are perceived
• Graduate first destination data invaluable to
  careers advice
• Predictors -researchers practitioners know
  little

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Introduction the data

• Individual careers services
• Higher education Statistical Agency (HESA)
• First destination of all graduates
• Annual books, 1994/5 to 2001/2
• Survey based on status of each graduate on the 6
  January following graduation
• Target of 80 per cent returns and a strict return
  deadline.
• 2-year period before compiled data released into
  public domain.

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Some preliminary analysis on psychology
graduates Introduction

• 1994 - BPS funded - surveyed the 1st
  destinations of psychology undergraduates
  1989-1991.
• no formal study of this kind for 10 years
• 6600 graduates in psychology annually
• myth - highly vocational
• majority dont become psychologists

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Employment Issue

• psychology graduate employment (41.1 ) -
  graduates overall (54.1 )
• unemployment higher than graduates overall (13.2
  to 9.4 ) (Ball and Bourner, 1984)
• psychology graduates not viewed favourably by
  employers compared to humanities and science
  (Rose and Radford, 1991)
• From 1989 to 1991 psychology fared little worse
  than graduates overall (Van Laar and Sherwood,
  1995)

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Discussion stimulated

• unequal proportions of women to men
• perceived and actual differences between red
  brick and post-1992 universities.
• issues of course entry requirements, course
  content and teaching methodology
• general economic recession
• increasing numbers of graduates
• the transferable skill content of psychology
  degrees
• Hayes (1996) - skills learnt are internalised and
  become hard to express.

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Method

• All statistics drawn from HESA publication First
  Destinations of Students Leaving Higher Education
  Institutions (Higher Education Statistics
  Agency, 1996-2004)
• Full-time single honours psychology graduates for
  the year 1995 to 2002
• Interpretation and recoding of data
• Descriptive statistics

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Results - Further Education

• Averages for further study/training fallen for
  psychology (25 to 22)
• and graduates overall (21 to 19 )

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Results - Employment figures

• 32.7 rise in psychology graduates (7.4 rise
  overall)
• employment figures for psychology risen (57 to
  64
• and overall graduate figure risen (64 to 67)
• unemployment decreased for psychology (10 to 6)
• and graduates overall (9 to 7)
• More psychology graduates

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Results Employment Sectors

• public sector (52)
• industry and commerce (37)
• education sectors (12)

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Results - Occupations
24 Health and Social Work e.g. hospital
activities, social work, community
counselling 17 Property Development, Renting
and Research Activities e.g. accounting, and
auditing activities, business and management
consultancy activities. 11 Wholesale and Retail
Trade, Repair of Motor Vehicles, Motorcycles and
Personal and Household Goods e.g. food, beverages
and tobacco retail. Retail sale of pharmaceutical
and medical goods, cosmetic etc. 11 Education
e.g. primary, secondary, adult other.
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Results Professional Level
22 Clerical and Secretarial e.g. civil service
admin officers assistants, accountants wages
clerks. 17 Professional e.g. teachers
university lecturers, clinical occupational
psychologists, librarians probation
officers. 17 Associate Professional and
Technical e.g. nurses, occupational speech
therapists, authors, personnel consultants,
advisers analysts. 16 Managers and
Administrators e.g. national local government
officers, civil service executive officers, other
managers administrators.

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Conclusion

• Overview of first destinations of psychology
  graduates nationally
• Trend in public sector employers can be
  speculated
• Reinforcement regarding nature of skill base and
  range of opportunities available
• Competitive in graduate employability and prevent
  stereotyping as feeder for public and health
  sector
• Question reliability and validity of first
  destination surveys - suggest further research
  needed to explore other methods

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Where do we go from here?
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Our plans obtaining the bigger picture

• Purchased HESA raw data set
• Clear limitations in book form of presentation
• Employment categories broad ambiguous
• Inconsistencies in rounding up and down
• Differences in presentation between books

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Our plans obtaining the bigger picture cont . .
.

• Examine broader range of degrees
• Undergraduate degrees - first destinations?
• Longitudinal 1st destination trends
• First destinations - long term progression?
• UCAS data
• Do A levels influence 1st destinations
• Secured minimal funding to continue
• Analysis funded by professional bodies
• Nuffield Foundation (7,000)

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Over to you
Any questions What do you think of the
preliminary analysis so far? What would you have
us use this data to investigate? Any research
ideas Any proposals for collaboration