The impact of work-integrated learning on academic workload: drivers, time and tasks involved

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is recognised as a valuable pedagogical strategy for learning, and for providing students with work experience during their degree program. Despite the benefits, such programs are recognised as being more time consuming to design and deliver, and therefore have implications for the workload of academic staff. Prompted by a lack of empirical data substantiating such claims, and the roll out of an institution-wide approach to WIL at an Australian university, this study was initiated to collect data on the amount of work and types of tasks involved in teaching, administering and supporting WIL courses. Specifically, the following research questions were investigated: 1) How much time is spent on the delivery of WIL courses? 2) What tasks are involved in the delivery of WIL? 3) What are the key drivers of WIL workload? Twenty-eight WIL unit (course) convenors provided workload data on 48 WIL units via surveys, with 30 staff also participating in interviews. Findings confirm that WIL workload is substantial, with key drivers relating to the unit characteristics and nature of the WIL activity. Implications for practice, policy and future research are discussed.