Yesterday I was able to present some early findings from a research study I have been running looking at how HE careers practitioners use and have experienced digital technology through the pandemic and what signposts this creates for us for the future of digital delivery by careers services moving forward.
The study so far has found a number of key tensions that exist which points forward to key questions for services and the sector to resolve as part of the process of designing digitally hybrid services. These are;
- Access – technology creates more possibility for students to access careers support but may need to some students being cut out and may have been more a product of career fears during the pandemic increasing demand than technology creating more foot fall.
- Working Alliance – some participants felt technology made having a working alliance during career guidance was lots harder when others just saw it as a matter of adapting practice.
- Interactivity – some participants felt digital made it hard to run truly interactive group works while others saw it as a matter of better design. Everyone felt delivering digitally to groups required more energy and a higher ‘performance’ element.
- Teams – teams were important during the early stages of the pandemic when everything went online but many talked about it being harder to keep meaningful relationships in a team going. This was traded off against the benefits of working form home.
- Burnout – Lots of participants felt working digitally lead to better work life balance but being stuck with a screen could also lead to greater fatigue and burnout.
Here is the link to the video from the session;
If you would like to look at the slides from the event then you can find them here –
Running In A Forest 