Graduate satisfaction and entry-level training in office skills

This report presents results from the 1997 TAFE Graduate destination survey (GDS) and from interviews conducted in 1998 with staff from nine courses in entry-level office skills.

The GDS was a national survey of 60 746 students who completed a course of 200 or more hours at a technical and further education (TAFE) institute in 1996. Among other measures, the survey asked graduates to rate the overall quality of their course as well as 12 particular aspects of their course. These ratings were combined in this report to form an aggregate measure of graduate satisfaction. This report then investigated the relationship between graduate satisfaction and the characteristics of the graduates, their courses, the outcomes of their courses and, for entry-level courses in office skills, the provider.

The attitudes of graduates to their courses were very positive. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 was extremely poor and 10 was excellent, more than two-thirds of graduates rated the overall quality of their course at 8 or higher. Most aspects of courses also received high ratings. The major exception was the rating of the information about careers and jobs available to you, which was scored at 8 or higher by just over a third of graduates.

The reported outcomes of the courses were also positive for most graduates. Nearly 80% of graduates reported that they had achieved, or partly achieved, their main reason for undertaking the course. There was a net increase in labour market participation of about 15% of all respondents, and of more than 30% for respondents who had undertaken their course in order to obtain employment.

There was some interesting variation in the level of the satisfaction among categories of graduates, types of courses, the outcomes of courses and across TAFE institutes. The amount of variation in satisfaction explained by these characteristics (individually or collectively) was small except for some of the outcome measures. Even for the outcome measures, however, the relationship with satisfaction was at best still not particularly strong, and often quite low. For the graduates of the entry-level training courses who form the focus of this report, the relationship between satisfaction and outcomes was low.

The following categories were associated with slightly higher levels of graduate satisfaction:

Characteristics of graduates

• female
• older and younger graduates (20 to 34-year-olds had lower levels of satisfaction)
• English-speaking-background
• post-school qualification before commencing the course
• non-metropolitan area
• not being in full-time employment before starting the course (but much of this difference is due to other characteristics of these graduates or the type of course in which they enrolled)
• living in a middle or high area of unemployment

Characteristics of courses

• entry-level courses
• the health and the service sector
• at least some workplace delivery

Outcomes

• increase in labour force participation
• achievement of reason for enrolling
• obtained one or more labour market benefits

Entry-level training in office skills

If information on graduate outcomes and satisfaction is to be used to improve the quality of training provision, it needs to be linked to individual courses. The fact that graduate satisfaction varies systematically with the level of qualification and the field of study of the course suggests that comparisons of courses should be made between courses with the same level of qualification and in the same field provided by different TAFE institutes. The report explored such comparisons for 33 courses providing entry-level training in office studies.

It was found that:

• There were substantial differences in the level of graduate satisfaction among the 33 courses. These differences persisted after statistical adjustment for differences in the personal characteristics of graduates, their reasons for enrolling, the mode of instruction and various outcome variables. Such adjustment produced only slight changes in the ranking of courses in terms of graduate satisfaction.
• Differences between courses, however, explained some, but by no means all, of the variation in satisfaction - at most 6.4% of the total variance. Although the relationship between satisfaction and provider was often large compared with the variation explained by other measured characteristics of graduates, their courses and outcomes, it is still at best a modest relationship.
• For the comparison of courses, graduate satisfaction was unrelated (and possibly inversely related) to two important graduate outcomes: whether or not graduates achieved their reason for enrolling and whether or not graduates achieved some labour market benefit from their course. Such results suggest that satisfaction measures for courses may not be influenced by outcomes.

The interviews

Interviews were sought with staff from the five entry-level office studies courses that were ranked highest on graduate satisfaction and the five that were ranked lowest. Nine interviews were obtained. The interviews were undertaken both to seek information that would explain the differences in graduate satisfaction among courses and to obtain the views of the staff on the nature of their course.

The interviews did not provide satisfactory explanations for the differences in graduate satisfaction among the courses. They did, however, highlight possible problems in using course-level results from the GDS. Because of the articulation of courses, the nature of graduates identified as having obtained a particular qualification can be influenced by the enrolment policies of the TAFE institutes. In one institute, certificate II graduates could be completing the course for which they enrolled, while in another, certificate II graduates could be non-completers of a certificate III course.

Several concerns were raised in the interviews about the provision of entry-level training in office skills:

• The introduction of pass/fail assessment of competency to replace a finer set of gradings had reduced the incentive for students to achieve higher levels of proficiency.
• The pathway from the study of office skills in school to the study of office skills in TAFE was sometimes difficult because students coming from school had not achieved the required level of skill to proceed directly to the next qualification.
• The sometimes low level of literacy and numeracy of entrants to the courses was a barrier to effective skills formation
• Flexible delivery has made teaching more demanding, but there has been little additional support provided to teachers.

Within some colleges there also seemed to be a mismatch between aspects of the national training strategy in relation to flexible delivery and the recognition of prior learning and the incentives created by the funding policies of the institute or the broader TAFE system.