Engaging international students in employability activities: an innovative approach

Abstract

This project aimed to investigate whether it will be effective to adopt social media to disseminate training opportunities and engage international students to develop their employability while they study in the UK. More specifically, three research objectives were:  to examine international students’ opinions on usage of social media to engage them in different employability opportunities;  to assess the effectiveness of the social media;  to make recommendations to relevant student services for better engagement of international students. Background/context to project: Graduate employability has been widely debated by policy-makers and academics (Pegg et al., 2012). However, Waters (2009) points out that little reference is made in current literature to the increasingly international dimensions of higher education. Huang et al.’s (2014) research into graduate employability and Chinese international students in the UK argues that the students were fully aware of a range of opportunities available to support the development of their employability but their engagement with those opportunities could be better. Many authors recognise the importance of social media in engaging students in learning but few consider graduate employability. Furthermore, anecdotal evidence gathered through our previous research and our roles in supporting international students indicate that social media might address the current gap