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The study compares how work-integrated learning (WIL) placement positioning, duration, assessment strategies and environment at three Southern African universities influence engineering students' academic and employability outcomes.

The study used a qualitative case study approach that drew on the principles of collaborative autoethnography (CAE). The researchers reflected on WIL placement practices, structure, assessment, environment and outcomes at their universities and then analysed the reflections using comparative descriptive techniques.

The study reports no uniformity among the universities in positioning WIL placement in the curriculum. It is done during end-of-year vacations, between the penultimate and final year or in the last year. The study found WIL placement positioning does not influence academic outcomes; however, the influence on employability outcomes needs further investigation. Components of WIL placement assessment are similar, presentations, logbooks and reports. However, there are differences in the weightings of the various assessment components and the contribution of the industry supervisor. There is a growing trend towards placing students within universities to mitigate the challenges of limited opportunities of placements available in the industry. The impact of this also needs to be further investigated. Lastly, there are policy-related challenges in placing international students. Work restrictions on student visas limit international students’ access to WIL placement. Southern African universities need to lobby the waivers to student visa restrictions that limit their participation in WIL programs if there are to succeed in their internationalisation efforts.

The study highlights the gaps in understanding Southern African universities' WIL placement practices, particularly relating to the positioning of WIL placement in the curriculum, the assessment methods used and the theory to work integration and employability outcomes.

This study investigates the relationship between perceived supervisor support (PSS) and learner career curiosity and tests the mediating role of sense of belonging, engagement and learning self-efficacy.

The authors used a three-wave repeated cross-sectional data collected from 509 final-year undergraduate students of 11 Nigerian public universities, who had completed the compulsory work placement to analyze the influence of PSS on learner’s career curiosity via a parallel mediation involving sense of belonging, engagement (behavioural, emotional and cognitive) and self-efficacy.

The results show that engagement mediates the path through which PSS influences career curiosity. However, the authors found no evidence that sense of belonging and self-efficacy mediated the relationship between PSS and learner’s career curiosity in this population.

The findings of this study highlight the importance of PSS as a resource that influences learner’s career curiosity, particularly during a work placement.

This paper seeks to describe food‐company Tulip's Talent for the New Generation scheme, which provides first‐hand experience across the industry to young people at every level of education.

The paper explains the origins of the scheme and the form it takes. It includes first‐hand descriptions by some of the people taking part in the scheme.

The paper describes the enthusiasm of young graduates, apprentices and people on industrial placements at Tulip.

The paper highlights the benefits to the company – whose growth depends on young talent – and to the individuals of the various training opportunities available at Tulip.

The paper outlines the real opportunities for participants to achieve their full potential by gaining experience with a fast‐growing business.

The paper reveals that the “opportunity for all” approach at Tulip seeks to ensure that, from face‐to‐face courses to one‐to‐one mentoring, employees are supported at every step of their career.

A central aim of higher education is employability, in order to enable graduates to act in dynamic working environments. Internships as the prevalent work-based learning (WBL) settings offer such an opportunity during the studies; they are commonly used and broadly researched as interventions to improve students’ skills and competences. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influencing factors on students’ skills and competences that lead to employability in WBL settings.

The paper provides a synthesis of relevant international empirical research on beneficial effects of the very common WBL setting, internship, to create a research framework across disciplines.

The current research is characterized by a search for “best practices,” rather than a holistic and systematic view, acknowledging and taking into account different perspectives and their influence. It cannot sufficiently explain why employability in some WBL settings is enhanced more than in others. Therefore, it is necessary to expand the current understanding and evaluation of WBL as an experiential and situated learning experience. It is essential to take promotive factors from the university, the practical partner and the student perspective into account to understand employability enhancement. Based on these findings, a research framework for a holistic perspective on influencing factors of students’ employability is designed.

There is no empirical proof for the findings yet. Future empirical research may, therefore, be directed toward empirical testing of the impact of WBL settings.

It is possible to infer recommendations for improving WBL settings from the three parties involved by interlinking situated and experiential theory.

The study aims to explore, via empirical evidence, executive assessment of Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduates in Nigerian companies.

The research utilized a descriptive research design with structured questionnaire developed from relevant extant literature. Relevant data analysis, including determination of the psychometric properties of the research instrument, was undertaken via the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software.

The research results indicate that MBA graduates in the surveyed Nigerian organizations exhibited desired managerial tendencies only at an average extent.

The limitations associated with the research include the use of convenience sampling approach, limited sample size and combination of respondents from different industrial sectors.

The research has practical implications for organizational executives associated with management development programmes via MBA, in addition to university administrators with regard to content, format, curricula and process for MBA education programmes.

The research is original and has practical and theoretical values.

The use of tag questions in speech has been hypothesised to make speech sound uncertain and tentative although Holmes (1984) suggests that there are three different types of tag questions and only one type is linked to uncertainty. Research on the issue of gender differences in tag question usage has produced confusing findings with some research indicating women use more tag questions, other research revealing men use more and some research finding no difference. The research on tag question use has identified role and power as important factors not just gender. The effects of the presence of the opposite sex on speech is a controversial area of study. Past research suggests that the use of tag questions is affected by whether the conversation is between members of the same sex or members of both sexes. The current study aimed to clarify the controversy of whether men or women use more tag questions, any possible effects of group composition and sought to extend research on the relationship of tag question use to role (chairperson or not) and power (highest status or not). The study was conducted at a power station in England. Ten business meetings which were all male, all female or mixed were tape recorded. From these tape recordings the tag questions were identified, transcribed and classified as modal, affective facilitative or affective softener according to the classification provided by Holmes (1984).

Purpose – This chapter outlines and describes a number of case studies detailing the experiences and activities of individual women scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs who have made substantial contributions to particular fields of science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM) activities.

Methodology/approach – The chapter employs a qualitative case approach to offer detailed insight into the experiences of successful women entrepreneurs.

Findings: These case study reports describe the tactics, strategies and achievements of successful female innovators within the STEM sector.

Research limitations/implications – Although offering rich descriptions of the achievements of women innovators, these cases cannot be generalised. However, they do illustrate that woman have a notable and meaningful presence within the field of entrepreneurial STEM innovation.

Practical implications – These cases can act as role model illustrations to encourage other women to act as STEM innovators and entrepreneurs.

Social implications – Indicative that despite gendered ascriptions which limit women's engagement with STEM subjects they can, and do, offer a critical contribution to innovation and entrepreneurial activity within the field.

Originality/value of chapter – A relatively rare celebration of women's achievement within the STEM sector.

This paper identifies the activities to be undertaken by students during short industrial placements. The purpose of this paper is to obtain a better understanding of what students do during their placements and provide a framework that supports both teaching and learning. This research focuses on a masters-level programme that contains a series of four, two week industrial placements where groups of two students work on a real and significant issue for the host company.

A framework, developed from literature, describes a placement in terms of 17 high-level activity groups. A multi-stage action research method was applied to test the framework and develop a more detailed level framework. This used insights gathered from students, tutors and researchers on all 80 placements undertaken during the 2012-2013 academic year.

The 17 high-level activity groups and their configuration in the framework were confirmed. For the 12 process activity groups, 64 activities were identified and included into a detailed level framework. For the five through-placement activity groups some specific activities were captured and further work remains to capture the others.

These complex industrial placements can now be described consistently to students, companies and tutors using an evidence-based framework. Literature searches have not identified any other equivalent research-based frameworks. Other HE programmes also use similar industrial placements and this framework will provide a basis to support these and add to the body of knowledge in work integrated learning.

Stress has become an important topic in the academic environment. However, studies on academic stress among built environment students have received little attention. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to assess the causes of academic stress, and its coping strategies among built environment undergraduate students in public higher education institution (HEI) in Nigeria.

An extensive literature review was conducted to identify the causes of academic stress and its coping strategies among the students in HEIs, using quantity surveying students as a case. Primary data were elicited through questionnaire survey administered on 189 quantity surveying students in Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. A total of 169 copies of the questionnaire were returned and suitable for analysis. The data obtained were analyzed using the mean score and t-test.

The study identified 27 causes of students’ academic stress, and the analysis of the total ranking revealed that 8 out of 27 causes of academic stress were considered important. The results of t-test indicated that except for 5 out of 27 identified causes of student academic stress, there is no statistically significant difference in the perceptions of male and female students. The study further identified 30 coping strategies employed by students in dealing with academic stress, out of which six identified coping strategies were considered important. In addition, the results of t-test revealed that except for 11 out of 30 identified coping strategies, there is no statistically significant difference in the perceptions of male and female students surveyed.

The identification of the important causes of academic stress and its coping strategies among the students in the public higher education will be useful for the university management to formulate policies toward providing a well-balanced academic environment that is conducive to better learning. In addition, policy recommendations are proposed.

The findings will help the academic staff and university management to design and implement policies toward refining the teaching procedures in higher education. Also, this study would be of great value to academic staff and university administrators to develop a framework for incorporating stress coping strategies in the higher education curriculum. This study is important as not many empirical studies relating to academic stress and its coping strategies have been conducted in the built environment disciplines.