A Longitudinal Study of Students in a Work-Based Learning Program
TL;DR
This study seeks to understand how individuals reflect on their GA experiences, how their stories have changed over time, and how they situate their program participation within their broader professional and personal development, and explores the long-term impacts of apprenticeship-based education.
Abstract
In 2020, we conducted a qualitative study exploring a Graduate Apprenticeship (GA) in Software Engineering at the University of Glasgow, focusing on student experiences, institutional motivations, and employer perspectives. A key component of this work involved life story interviews with nine students, capturing their learning trajectories and sense-making of their experiences early in the program. Now that these students have completed their degrees, we conducted a follow-up study to examine their perspectives and pathways. Using a longitudinal narrative approach, we re-interviewed prior participants from the first GA cohort. Our study seeks to understand how these individuals reflect on their GA experiences, how their stories have changed over time, and how they situate their program participation within their broader professional and personal development. By analyzing these narratives, we explore the long-term impacts of apprenticeship-based education and contribute to the literature on work-based learning in computing education. This work also provides additional insight into the ways stories of educational experiences evolve over time.