Co-Op Student Beliefs About Integrative Learning Competenc

Cooperative education (co-op) enables students to alternate periods of classroom study with periods of employment related to their academic major. A key educational goal of co-op is for students to integrate classroom learning with workplace learning. The aim of this study was to give voice to and to make sense of how college students who have co-op education experience perceived the notion of integrative learning competency. The methodology of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was employed, and eight students were enlisted to participate in the study. The participants completed a questionnaire and were interviewed one-on-one. Inductive analysis of the texts revealed that participants expressed beliefs about integrative learning competency primarily from the perspective of their expectations to gain workplace experience. The analysis also revealed that participants believed that integrative learning was fostered in the due course of their school and work experiences without having to intentionally aim to become competent at it. Participants supposed that certain challenges would need to be overcome in order to become competent integrative learners; those challenges reflected themes of needing to be capable of being open-minded, meeting higher performance demands, deepening discernment of meaning relationships, resituating knowledge and/or skills across situations, and owning the development of one's meaning-connecting capacity. Comportment of these beliefs with select formal learning theories and/or constructs is discussed. Considerations for fostering the development of student integrative learning skills through a course of study or counseling-support are also posed.