Postgraduate student experiences of workplace learning for a professional psychology qualification in the South African context

Abstract

Expanding access to higher education has taken priority in South Africa. There is a focus on improving entry into learning contexts and subsequent economic and social mobility opportunities by developing attributes in graduates that are in line with employment sector expectations. Work-integrated learning (WIL) processes serve to expose students to the real expectations of the workplace with the intention of bridging the gap between study completion and work readiness. The implementation and coordination of WIL placements are therefore an important component of professional degrees such as psychology masters. This article adopts the theory of connectivism as the central lens and emphasizes that knowledge is gathered through a network of connections between entities (nodes) that may consist of individuals, groups, fields, ideas or communities. The article describes the learning experience from the student’s perspective and provides an example of how the connectivist approach can be used to bridge the complex learning process in professional qualifications.