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Work-based placements are central to the university education of allied health and social work (AHSW) students. As a result of COVID-19, the clinical learning environment of students' work-based placements was dramatically altered resulting in numerous documented challenges. This inter-disciplinary study aimed to evaluate AHSW students' perceptions and experiences of completing a diverse range of work-based placements during COVID-19.

This study was a mixed-method inter-disciplinary study using an anonymous online survey consisting of multiple choice, Likert scale and free text questions. Mixed-methods design supported amalgamation of insights from positivism and interpretivism perspectives and enabled research questions to be answered with both breadth and depth. 436 students were invited to participate who were enrolled in five AHSW educational university programmes: speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, radiation therapy and social work. Data collected was analysed using both quantitative (descriptive and analytical statistics) and qualitative (thematic analysis) methods.

118 students participated (response rate: 27%) representing a range of AHSW disciplines who attended diverse placement settings. While there was extensive disruption in the learning environment leading to increased levels of stress and concern, a triad of individual and systemic supports helped to ensure positive work-based placement experiences and student success for the majority of AHSW students during COVID-19: (1) university preparation and communication; (2) placement site and supervisor support; and (3) students' resilience and capacity to adapt to a changed work-place environment.

This inter-disciplinary study reports the work-based placement experiences from the professional education programmes of healthcare students during the COVID-19 pandemic, giving a unique view of their perspectives and learning during this unprecedented crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of work-based research projects at postgraduate level. The focus of this paper is to measure the impact of masters- and doctoral-level work-based projects which was the specific contribution of one group of researchers to the Nixon et al.’s (2008) study.

This paper is based on data generated as part of a wider study that examines the impact of work-based learning projects across undergraduate through to doctoral level from the perspective of employers and from the employees perspective. The research study is based on a sample of alumni who had graduated from work-based masters and professional doctorate programmes and their corresponding employers in a UK higher education institution.

At masters and doctorate level the work-based project can often make an impact on the work context and also have a developmental effect on the employee who becomes a practitioner-researcher to undertake the project.

This paper finds that work-based projects are often an investment that companies make that have the propensity to yield tangible business success as well as providing an incentive for key staff to remain in the company and achieve university recognition.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of positive emotions in generating workplace impacts and examine it through the application of an adapted appreciative inquiry process in the context of a work-based project aimed at promoting integrated working under challenging organisational circumstances.

The paper adopts a case study methodology which highlights how an organisation facing difficult circumstances (such as austerity measures, siloed cultures, constant threats of reorganisation, and requirement to work across occupational boundaries) adapted an appreciative inquiry intervention/method.

This paper found, first, that the utilisation of appreciative inquiry in the context of an adapted work-based project in difficult organisational circumstances generated positive emotions manifest through a compelling vision and action plans, second, that the impacts (such as a vision) can become entangled and therefore part of the wider ecological context which promotes pathways to such impact, but that, third, there are a various cultural and climate features which may limit the implementation of actions or the continuation of psychological states beyond the time-bound nature of the work-based project.

The paper illustrates how an organisation adapted a form of appreciative inquiry to facilitate organisational change and generated outcomes which were meaningful to the various occupational groupings involved.

This paper offers new evidence and insight into the adaptation of appreciative inquiry under challenging circumstances in the context of a work-based learning project. It also provides a richer picture of how positive emotion can manifest in ways which are meaningful to a localised context.

This paper examines the relationship between work, resilience and sustainable futures for organisations and communities by considering the nature of work-related problems (WRPs) and the work-based research designed to investigate them. The authors explore the axis of work environment > work-related problem > resilience > sustainable futures as it might be impacted by work-based research.

The paper introduces two current real-world examples, one in Australia and one in Asia, of work-based research projects associated with higher education aimed at promoting resilience and sustainability, and discusses the research problems, questions, designs, methods, resilience markers and sustainability markers used by these projects.

Work-based research, when conducted rigorously using mixed methods, may contribute to increased resilience of organisations and communities and thereby seeks to promote more sustainable organisational and social futures.

Work-based research conducted in higher education seeks to investigate, address and solve WRP, even when such problems occur in unstable, changing, complex and messy environments.

Resilience and sustainable futures are ambiguous and disputed terms, but if work-based research can be brought to bear on them, organisations and communities might better adapt and recover from challenging situations, thus reducing their susceptibility to shock and adversity.

While resilience and sustainability are commonly referred to in the research literature, their association to work, and specifically problems associated with work, have yet to be examined. This paper goes some of the way to addressing this need.

This study examined the effect of COVID-19 on the acquisition of employable skills among national service personnel in Ghana.

The study adopted the cross-sectional descriptive survey design from the positivist paradigm to collect data from a sample of 2,263 out of a population of 77,962 trainees (national service personnel) posted to the public (85.1%) and the private (14.9%) sectors for the 2019/2020 service year. Sampling techniques were simple random, stratify and snowball sampling techniques and Google form softcopy questionnaire was used for data collection.

The study found that COVID-19 had made workplaces and work schedules very risky for trainees' acquiring employable skills in Ghana because their employers/trainers' were unable to provide adequate PPEs for trainees. Preventive measures such as mandatory leaves, reduced workload/working hours and shift system had reduced the duration for acquiring employable skills which could affect employability and aggravate graduate unemployment in Ghana. The sustainability and quality of job opportunities presented by COVID-19 to graduate trainees-farming; trading and online teaching could also not be guaranteed.

It was recommended that employers/trainers should provide adequate PPEs, introduce teleworking with the necessary tools and training for their trainees. Educational institutions should provide work-based learning methods in their curricula to enhance employable skills for national service graduates. Government's support for trainees venturing into self-employed job opportunities presented by the COVID-19 was also recommended

It was recommended that employers/trainers should provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), introduce teleworking with the necessary tools and training for their trainees. Government's support for trainees venturing into self-employed job opportunities presented by the COVID-19 was also recommended.

This paper has not been published anywhere.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a qualitative observational study of how middle managers in healthcare in the UK on a work-based masters programme in leadership were introduced to foundational aspects of creativity and delivering innovation through an assignment on contemporary architectural design.

The assignment involved individual research of a recent architectural design followed by group poster presentations of findings and structured analysis. No prior knowledge of design was required. An activity theory approach was used to explore common principles of creativity and leading innovation, key features of design processes and tools for facilitating implementation.

A total of 89 managers in seven cohorts completed the assignment. Data from process records and group work, artefacts and follow-up evaluation questionnaires were analysed within an interpretive approach. Analysis of data lent support for the view that exploring architectural design as an activity system helped participants to develop conceptual and applied links between management performance, creative collaboration and delivering innovation in their own, different field of practice. Where participants expressed limited self-efficacy regarding the capacity for fostering creativity, this was usually ascribed to systemic inhibitors.

Exploring architectural design could provide a relatively low-cost, highly stimulating component of management development programmes seeking to harness the contribution of creative industries to foster work-based creativity and innovation.

This study explores a novel use of architectural design within the context of work-applied development programmes for healthcare managers.

The purpose of this research is to focus on work-based problems catalysed by the COVID-19 global pandemic, based on a case study of a multi-continental, multi-campus university distributed across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Pakistan. Higher education institutions (HEIs) in developing countries lacked pre-existing infrastructure to support online education and/or policy and regulatory frameworks during the pandemic. The university's programmes in Pakistan and East Africa provide lessons to other developing countries' HEIs. The university's focus on teaching and learning and staff development has had a transformational organisational effect.

Case study with participatory approaches aimed at co-production of responsive systems and co-creation of effective curriculum and faculty training is used.

Systems and processes developed across the university in the effort to ensure educational continuity. From the disruption to all educational programmes and the disarray of regulatory bodies' responses, collaboration emerged as a key driver of positive change. The findings reiterate the value of trust and provision of opportunities for those with the requisite competencies to lead in a participatory and distributive manner whilst addressing limited human and financial resources. The findings reflect on previous work respecting organisational change recast in the digital age.

This paper reflects the authors' work in real-time as they led and managed changes encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper will be of value to management and leadership cadres, particularly in developing contexts, responsible for recovery and sustainability of the higher education sector.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the emerging spirituality debate with the aim of generating and sustaining tolerance for spirituality in the workplace, with a specific focus upon the impact this can have upon work-based learners. “Spirituality” is gaining impetus worldwide as a growing number of organisations are proactively accommodating their multi-ethnic and multi-faith workforce by adapting their policies to meet employees’ spiritual needs. As yet in the UK, the majority of organisations fail to recognise neither the basic spiritual well-being of their employees nor the impact this can have upon work-based learning processes.

This study adopts a quantitative approach with questionnaires distributed to a multi-national retail UK-based organisation with an ethnically diverse national workforce. The study was tested by collecting data from managers and employees of this large, multi-million pound retail chain organisation in the UK, consisting of 55 stores and 1,249 employees, in order to gather employees’ perceptions on spirituality within their place of work regarding policies, communication and perceived source of conflict.

The results revealed that the majority of employees deemed spirituality was not something they felt comfortable discussing or appropriate to practice within the workplace and there were no clear policies and procedures in place to support either management or employees.

This paper highlights areas for further research in the broad professional areas of spirituality in relation to organisational approaches to work-based learning. The research is from one organisation and utilising one method – qualitative research would add depth to the knowledge.

This paper highlights areas for further research in the broad professional areas of spirituality in relation to organisational approaches to work-based learning.

Employee spiritual well-being is under-researched and overlooked by organisations. Changing the current spiritual intransigence is long overdue as employees’ spiritual fulfilment leads to high-trust relationships in the workplace and can further support those engaged in work-based learning.

Work-based research is the applied form of work-based learning (WBL) and has been described as the systematic and methodical process of investigating work-related “problems”. Such problems can either be associated with specific workplaces and domains of practice or may more broadly be described as practical, social or real-world in nature. However, the specific characteristics of work-related problems for organisations and society have yet to be explained, and inadequate problem definition, multiple and competing goals, and lack of agreement on cause-effect relationships have hampered understanding. The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of work-related problems and provides examples from real-world contexts in Australia.

The paper provides models and examples of standard and non-standard work-related problems based on prior research and current practice.

Research paradigms view work-related problems as either definable and solvable or ill-defined, complex, difficult to describe and not easily rectified. The former view is concerned with “high ground problems” associated with traditional research methods; the latter with “lowland, messy, confusing problems” more frequently associated with the social sciences. Irrespective of orientation and definition, work-related problems have one thing in common: they are typically messy, constantly changing and complex, and many are co-produced and wicked.

Despite difficulties with identifying and isolating the various types of work-related problem, the paper establishes the importance of doing so for the practitioner. The definition and examination of work-related problems contribute to an evolving formulation of WBL and its application to private organisations, government agencies and work more generally.

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) is a process by which both formal learning for recognised awards, informal learning from experience and non-formal learning for uncertificated but planned learning is given academic recognition. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper refers to international developments in RPL and then focuses upon the extensive and innovative use of RPL by Middlesex University and the developing RPL work at the Australian Institute of Business.

The Middlesex experience of recognition of learning from experience as part of the development of customised work-based learning programmes demonstrates the potential of RPL for business and management programmes.

The use of RPL for admission and/or credit in standard programmes enables individuals to have their work-based knowledge acknowledged as relevant, worthwhile and equivalent to learning obtained in the higher education classroom.