Work-integrated learning (WIL) – a pedagogy that integrates academic studies with workplace experiences – presents an excellent opportunity for students to “deliberately practice” their design skills. To date there has been little investigation into the effect(s) of WIL experiences on developing novice designers’ design skills.

We performed a series of longitudinal interview case studies following three engineering students through the course of a 4-month work term. Interviews were semi-structured to gather rich contextual descriptions of participant experiences designing in WIL settings. Transcripts were analysed using an iterative thematic analysis approach.

Results indicate specific areas where WIL helps develop novice designers’ engineering design skills and mindsets beyond their early experiences in the engineering classroom. These include their experiences interacting with clients/users, the importance of project transition considerations, resource coordination, teamwork/collaboration, and the design process. We discuss how the structure of design tasks and their environment differ from the classroom experience, highlighting how WIL can supplement traditional design education.

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is an educational approach that intentionally scaffolds work experiences throughout undergraduate education. This approach has been proven to provide many benefits to students, including increased grade point averages, better job prospects after graduation and skill development. As such, we expect WIL experiences to contribute to engineering student's ability to design, a central aspect of both engineering education and practice. We found little evidence of research related to WIL experiences in the design literature, so we conducted a secondary data analysis on 33 publications from engineering education literature focusing on student WIL experiences with design. The review found evidence of students using a design process and recognizing the importance of designing within context, focusing on health, safety and ethical concerns of being an engineering designer. However, there was little evidence found of what students actually designed (i.e., components, systems or processes). We highlight some interesting areas for future research, specifically for design researchers to investigate how student work experiences are contributing to their development of design knowledge, skills and abilities.

This article investigates the possibilities of a vocational pedagogy for undergraduate popular music education which is grounded in site and city. The value of work-integrated curricula in tertiary music environments is well established; however, often absent from such discussions is consideration of how geospatial contexts mediate the opportunities and resources available to universities. In response, we provide a critical comparison of how work-integrated learning (WIL) has been developed in two undergraduate popular music degrees in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Through comparison, we consider how the geographic locations of both programmes have shaped WIL, as well as identifying the specific economic, cultural and political tensions that emerge.