The impact of work integrated learning towards students' learning: the case of ICT students in South African universities of technology

Abstract

The change in global structure regarding labour demand has, in recent years, led to a strong shift towards high-skilled workers. This trend has become a contributing factor towards increasing unemployment rates in South Africa. Consequently, work integrated learning (WIL) has been introduced in the curriculum of South African universities of technology (UoTs) to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-life industry experience. To learn the contribution of WIL in improving the quality of graduates, it becomes highly imperative to investigate the impact of WIL with focus on specific discipline. Therefore, based on the Kolb's learning model, this paper investigated the impact of WIL on undergraduate ICT students' learning. A quantitative survey instrument was adapted from existing scales and used on a sample of 76 ICT undergraduate students who had recently completed WIL. The results showed that over 90% of the students indicated that WIL significantly enhanced their learning.