Perspectives of Academics and Graduates into the World of Work: A South African Study

The aim of the study was to ascertain the expectations and perceptions of engineering graduates regarding an engineering career in the world of work, and compare them to perspectives of academic leaders of the engineering disciplines in which these graduates studied. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study firstly entailed a quantitative survey of engineering graduates at a South African University during their graduation using a questionnaire and convenience sampling. Graduates’ needs, aspirations, reason for pursuing engineering and their expectations of the workplace were determined and analysed using the Biggs’ Study Motives and Strategies framework. The study thereafter attempted to ascertain the perspectives of academic leaders at the same university, drawing from their years of experience and liaison with industry partners. Academic leaders at the university were interviewed qualitatively. An interpretivist paradigm was considered using deductive thematic semantic analysis on various themes concerning their views on graduate and employer expectations, trends, training programmes, postgraduate study, outcomes and attributes. The study also drew upon findings by the university Quality Promotions and Assurance survey for further corroboration of findings. Key misalignments between graduates and academic leaders were identified and discussed. The main misalignments included guidance expectations, niche proficiencies and innovation expectations. Key causes included language barriers, lack of engineering drive, high workload and surface study strategies, and assessment changes. Recommendations for the university’s role in mitigating many of the issues and mis-alignments were provided, along with recommendations for any possible future research in this area.

offices. Academic leader interviews were semi-structured and entailed an interpretivist approach. Results were analysed thematically.
While the above methodology represented a snapshot of the current situation, inquiries during interviews were made regarding observed trends. The study results were thus viewed in conjunction with the results of the 2019 University Quality Promotion and Assurance (QPA) Graduate Opinion Survey typically held at each graduation ceremony, thereby broadening the scope of the discussion (Quality Promotions and Assurance, 2019).

II. Research Methodology
The participation of a high number of graduates was necessary in order to achieve a credible assessment of their opinions and expectations. The aim was thus to engage in convenience sampling by surveying 140 graduates out of a population of 393 graduates present at 3 April 2019 Engineering Graduation Ceremony, which was the only opportunity to get the population surveyed together at one sitting (Quality Promotions and Assurance, 2019). Stratified probability sampling was employed, with the aim of surveying at least 20 graduates from each engineering discipline as a subset to get a representative sample of graduates from all disciplines of engineering (Bhat, 2019). However, when considering the 20 questionnaires handed out to each discipline, random probability sampling was observed.
In this study it was decided not only to ascertain graduates' expectations, but also to determine the sources of these expectations. Graduates' background and motivations were ascertained. In the work of Biggs (1987) and Biggs et al. (2001) it was postulated that student motivations impacted on their performance and approach towards their tertiary education. This study attempted to investigate if such motivations impacted their expectations regarding the workplace. Responses were collated using a positivist approach.
A study process questionnaire was developed by Biggs (1987) containing 42 questions requiring responses on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 'Never true of me' to 'Always true of me'. The questionnaire was subsequently reduced to contain a less cumbersome 20 statements (Biggs et al., 2001). The responses categorised students' motives and strategies for study into 'surface' and 'deep'. Motives such as the need to pass assessments for gainful employment, obtain a degree and general short-term planning were categorised as surface motives. Surface strategies included rote learning, minimal engagement and only studying essential course content. Deep motives entailed attaining a deep understanding of the career with the intention to contribute value to the profession. A questioning, independent mind, and pursuit of extra study material beyond the minimum indicated deep strategies. If motives and strategies are aligned, they can generally be grouped into what is described as approaches, although this is not always the case (Biggs et al., 2001).
The questionnaire firstly contained a biographical Section A consisting of 13 multiple-choice questions. Detailed information is provided in Table S1 and S2 as supplementary material. This was followed by a Section B set of 23 questions, 20 of which are from the condensed version of the Biggs (1987) questionnaire (Biggs et al., 2001) which cross-examined graduates' motives and strategies for studying engineering. The questions were purposefully staggered in a particular order in an attempt to cross examine graduates' responses. The questions measured feedback in the following manner: Question 1, Extent of Deep Motive; Question 2, Extent of Deep Strategy; Question 3, Extent of Surface Motive; Question 4, Extent of Surface Strategy; Question 5, Extent of Deep Motive (repeated, but asked in a different manner); Question 6, Extent of Deep Strategy … , up to Question 20. Details are provided in Table S3 of Supplementary Information. As per the Likert-scale format, each question required numerical responses of one to five, which was used in a staggered score mechanism where, for each respondent, the responses to questions 1, 5, 9, 13 and 17 were summed to provide a score measuring the extent of deep motive. Responses to questions 2, 6, 10, 14 and 18 were summed to provide a score measuring the extent of deep strategy. In the same manner, extent of surface motive was determined by summing responses for questions 3, 7, 11, 15 and 19, and the extent of surface strategy was determined by summing responses for questions 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20. This strategy followed the Biggs et al. (2001) condensed questionnaire in calculating summation scores. Table S4 provides an illustration of the summation.
Since responses to individual questions ranged from 1 to 5, cumulative scores could range from 10 to 50 for each approach. These scores could be analysed as a percentage out of a maximum 50, or further converted into decile scores for appropriate categorisation. Biggs (1987) contains tabulated guidelines for converting all scores into decile scores for different career fields including science, art and education. These scores were adapted for this study using a factor of 0.71 (50/70).
Decile scores were then used to categorise approaches. It is too simplistic to categorise respondents to have an either deep or surface approach. It was thus endeavored to determine the extent of deep or surface approaches by determining whether the respondent was collectively affirmative, neutral, or negative towards questions pertaining to deep or surface approaches. The decile scores of each approach were thus converted into three categories as shown in Table S5. Responses were then categorised by looking at the ranges together.
Respondents who did not answer consistently could not have a single determined approach. Some possibly indicated deep approaches to certain aspects of their studies, and yet surface approaches to other aspects with a desire just to pass. These respondents had an approach range of '+' for both deep and surface approaches. A similar case can be postulated for respondents with '−' for both deep and surface approaches, though responding to the questions negatively. Statistics of student approaches are provided in Table S6.
The questionnaire lastly contained a Section C written component where graduates were asked open-ended questions as listed in Table S7, to ensure no perspectives were missed. While questions were open ended, the variation in answers was limited and feedback was thus summarised and tabulated.
The second population in the study was that of academic leaders who headed each engineering discipline at the university. There were seven engineering disciplines at the university. Academic leaders maintained a close relationship with at least 32 industry partners collectively, gaining their insights over years through consistently hosting industrial advisory board meetings. This is practised in order to maintain the quality and contemporary relevance of their institutions degrees in an academic environment which encourages improvement of university rankings. The practice of setting up an industrial advisory board is a common method to maintain contact between academia and industry in engineering (Leslie, 2016;Azmi et al., 2018). Each academic leader also had at least 15 years of experience in academic research, teaching and learning, and thus had a thorough understanding of the goals, expectations and mentality of new engineering graduates. The profile of each interviewee are shown in Table S8. The interview schedule consisted of 17 questions shown in Table  S9 as the basis for the semi-structured conversation.
To further corroborate the information gained in the above surveys, the study also utilised secondary data provided by the annual university QPA Graduate Opinion Survey (Quality Promotions and Assurance, 2019), administered to all students as hard copies wholly by the university's QPA department during graduation ceremonies. The QPA survey consists of multiple choice questions assessing venue, facilities, general lecturing and course quality at the university.
Questionnaire results were analysed using MS Excel. Academic Leader Interviews were recorded and transcribed using Amberscript software and MS Word, and analysed thematically. A gatekeeper letter and tertiary ethical clearance forms were obtained from the University of KwaZulu-Natal for this study (protocol reference no. HSS/0188/019M and HSS/0586/019M). Each participant physically signed an informed consent form explaining the study and ensuring confidentiality of responses.

III. Results and Discussion
The strategy to use the graduation ceremony to survey graduates offered a rare convenience sampling advantage of surveying graduates from all engineering disciplines at once. All other options would have involved individually pursuing graduate responses, a cumbersome task.
Interviewing of academic leaders also provided good insight owing to the years of experience of the academic leaders.
Interviewees revealed a perception that most graduates simply expect or want to be employable and employed, and this surface motive impacted on graduate quality. As Table S6 shows, however, responses indicated that 68% of graduates had moderately to exclusively deep approaches to their engineering career. Tables S1 and S7 show that 64% pursued growth opportunities and that 61% of graduates possessed intrinsic interest in STEM fields. This disconnect between stated graduate opinion and academic leaders' perception of their motives may impact negatively on the teaching programme of a university. The drive of new graduates for career growth is underestimated and this may impact negatively on student treatment, focussing primarily on technical aspects of engineering while ignoring delivery of guidance on career planning and goal setting when in the work environment. Moreover, interviewees expressed the viewpoint that employers often preferred graduates with only broad industry knowledge in order to condition them into their particular enterprise which is often maintenance driven and lacking in research and development activities. This conflicts with the long term creative aspirations of these new employees. R3: If a student isn't exposed to innovation, he might never develop that skill by himself. He might have that ability and creativity (but) it may not develop. It might develop a little bit in his undergraduate degree but it won't develop further if he's employed at a company that is just doing (general) maintenance (i.e. lacking R&D activities) The expectation of innovation and reality of maintenance in industry as perceived by academic leaders may explain why only 12% of engineering graduates indicated aspirations for postgraduate study, compared to other fields where 92% of graduates aspire to further study (Quality Promotions and Assurance, 2019). Remuneration for full-time engineering postgraduate research is uncompetitive with industry. Academic leader discussions further revealed that the engineering industry offers little encouragement for postgraduate engineering study, a fact corroborated in literature (Townsend, 2005). Of primary recognition in industry is the possession of professional engineering registration, indicative of engineering experience and ability to do high level work independently. R1: postgrad qualifications will not increase their employment opportunities but it will increase their knowledge definitely and we will make them more competitive in terms of what they know but at the end of the day generally speaking, the market is not encouraging postgraduate studies.
Funding for postgraduate study did not compete with graduate engineer salaries and postgraduate degrees were often not rewarded in industry, at least not in the short term, a finding corroborated by literature (Townsend, 2005). R6: But it's happened on many occasions that the students have actually come in and decided to do a postgraduate degree, master's degree specifically, and then use that as sort of like a springboard and have been able to secure not only employment but really good employment.
Thirteen per cent of respondents did however indicate an interest in entrepreneurship. Table S1 indicates that 27% of graduates desired strong alignment to their field of study. Low interest (6%) in universally applicable modules was exhibited and 23% of graduates had specific job goals. This finding corresponds with a study in 2011 by Feutz and Zinser which found that graduates appreciate focused programmes more than programmes of a general nature.
This stance was however stated by academic leaders to be contrary to the reality of the workplace as academic leader responses revealed an increasing versatility required by growing companies specifically in fourth industrial revolution technologies, where engineers may find themselves in a variety of roles in the banking and insurance sectors. The graduate survey itself indicated that 16% of employed graduates were already not doing engineering work (Table S7). R4: Much of industry accepts that we can't produce an engineer for every job out there. They do realise that (graduate) engineers are these (inexperienced but skilled) viable vessels that can be directed and honed very quickly.
Results of the study process questionnaire, in particular statements 15 and 19 of Table S3, revealed that most respondents did not look at suggested readings while at the same time claiming to favour depth in studying. While student motivations were found to be deep, comparatively few exhibited this depth in their study strategies. The QPA Graduate Opinion Survey moreover found that only about half of engineering graduates felt the workload to be manageable and rather stated that there was insufficient time to study the full content of each course. The sheer workload of the degree resulted in an embrace of surface strategies even if deep motives were present. Workload discussions further occurred in written responses indicating some anxiety over the workplace in this regard. Interviewees perceived that workload may possibly increase in the workplace with some companies reportedly requiring presentation of results as often as once a week.
This contradiction and equal split of opinion indicates a need for educators at the undergraduate level to seek clarity and liaise with industry in order to derive the correct perception and to prepare graduates psychologically for the workplace. Itani and Srour (2016) indicated that high workloads caused undergraduates to emphasise on certain technical modules while non-technical modules are neglected, to their own detriment. Interviewees indicated low report writing skill as a common complaint from employers and also inhibited career progression and professional certification. This is corroborated by Mackay (2016) which cites experts advising institutions to lay more emphasis on writing skills together with entrepreneurship.
R3: Students come out of the school system I think without, or are not as proficient, in ability to write reports and communicate well with technical report writing. They go through the university system and they avoid it, (such as in) their practicals and assignments, they're getting help from each other etc. etc. Often the student is supposed to do things on their own but they're getting help and then they don't develop that proficiency in terms of technical report writing and that's probably the biggest complaint we have from industry.
As corroborated by literature (Townsend, 2005), 19% of graduates expect less emphasis on theory and more application in the workplace. Interviewees however indicated that many companies expect their employees to solve unique problems by starting from theory and formulating a solution. Of particular concern is the over-usage of certain engineering software which exists at university but is not used by smaller companies. Solutions must thus be developed from fundamental engineering theory which must often be re-learned, possibly leading to workplace inefficiency. Table S7 shows 61% of respondents expect structured guidance from their employer towards a goal of registering as Professional Engineers with ECSA, a title which improves employment attractiveness. Unfortunately, according to interviewees, industrial advisory boards reveal that the presence of structured EIT programmes prevail in only a handful of large companies locally. In local Civil Engineering and allied fields, EIT programmes are non-existent even in large construction companies. Random mentorships prevail which differ in quality and efficiency. This issue is amplified by ignorance over ECSA policy and guidelines in smaller firms.
R1: There's no dedicated training programme for civil engineers. There is nothing like that. Of course there is a lot of training workshops available from South African Institution of Civil Engineering but it's not a structured training.

R2
: And typically what happens in these presentations is they'll ask you questions until you can't answer it. You'll hear the stories about graduates coming out of these presentations and they get emotional and you know really, that's work.
R3: The big corporations have structure, like the energy utility, transport infrastructure company and mining companies. And the reason why is because these industries are very specific to what their needs are. R4: It's got this report writing aspects of a project for them to take. Control of, drawing up specifications for certain projects and then it's probably outsourcing a lot of it, managing it, signing it off and then being checked by their supervisor.
Interviewees also perceived that new graduate salary expectations are often high, especially considering that smaller companies are increasingly accounting for most new engineering posts. An overly high remuneration expectation can negatively impact new graduates' morale as it introduces disappointment.
R2: they feel that they're going to be walking directly into some sort of design house'; 'To a greater extent I think they are also thinking that they are going to be commanding bigger salaries than they actually get.
Collectively, Table S7 shows that 61% of graduates possessed a high interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which is an encouraging find. Interviewees stated that many companies perceived universities to overemphasise mathematics in the engineering programmes. Such overemphasis, however, had benefitted graduates with necessary skills to thrive in other industries such as banking and insurance. R3: we feel that engineers that we're producing are very broad and they're well-rounded and they are quite generic which means they can go anywhere like to the banking industry or insurance, because you know some people can't find employment. So limiting a person's employment by cutting out stuff that could have been useful in the bank or insurance would be a bit unfair. I know we don't really want to produce people for banking but it is what it is. Unemployment is high in our country and people can go that way.
While most responses reflected inward desire for their pursuit of an engineering career, only three graduates in the study expressed a deep desire to make a difference in society and play a role in social responsibility, particularly in the areas of environmental sustainability. This is of particular concern, especially considering that engineers play a primary role in sustainable development, pollution prevention and climate change mitigation while also propagating economic growth. A number of previous authors have corroborated this finding (Wolfe et al., 2016;Tretko & Vashkurak, 2017;Martinez et al., 2017).
Another important point to consider is South Africa's current economic climate. Section A of the questionnaire revealed that 14% of respondents needed to work while studying to sustain themselves and 24% had to run their own household. Numerous graduates work under difficult conditions often with a singular goal of overcoming personal poverty and increasing one's own quality of life. Sixteen per cent of respondents indicated a single desire to have a stable income. Interviewees stated that this desire may be more common. The literature found that this desire to personally succeed, get out of poverty and live well also affected the amount of emphasis undergraduates placed on certain modules (Itani and Srour, 2016;Carberry and Baker, 2018), with technical modules receiving more attention and non-technical modules often neglected. R4: What I do worry about is that they do engineering for the pay cheque, they've been coming for the pay cheque. A lot of the time that is the case. Yeah I'll go to graduate and there will be a BMW waiting for them in a couple years or two. R5: I don't find that we have those. There are some students like that. But look the majority sees engineering as a way out of a problem socially, economically. And if you have that attitude you know maybe (they're) not going to be the most competent engineer in a way. We try to change it. I know I do try.
Interviewees indicated that short courses could cost over $500 for a 5 day course. In-house training incurs the indirect cost of having to take senior employees out of their productive roles in order to facilitate training of new recruits. your facilitator is being seconded from somewhere else in the organisation to do that. Someone is being paid to fill this position while he's doing this.
Some also indicated the presence of government funding for small firms to upskill new employees. Absolute costs over a two to five-year period could not be ascertained as it is context dependent and ever changing, and thus could not be addressed holistically in this survey. A separate study would be necessary to quantify training costs within the work environment, should the interest and need arise.
Discussions with interviewees have revealed that misalignments between industry needs and graduate education is often to be expected since degrees are broad based while enterprises are highly specific to certain operations. It is employers' responsibility to understand this and in many cases they do. Interviewees accept that criticism from industry is to be expected as new firms emerge and seek to employ engineers, often with little idea of their capabilities.
R3: The thing is we're a broad based degree. We produce a mechanical engineer with a broad base of skills.
R5: Haha honestly I've no time for that because, I'll tell you why. It actually frustrates me because there'll be someone in industry wanting X, another one y, another one p. There is no way we can we can cope with the different demands.
In some cases, mismatches also occur when employers operate and demand skills in obsolete practices while the university is responsible for giving its students contemporary and relevant skills. R1: Okay so this mismatch would be there all the time which is from my side I think it's a positive thing. It's not (necessarily) a negative thing.
Owing to the relative difficulty of the engineering degree, in South Africa the field is still being pursued by the majority of students who speak English as their first language, with only 22% of graduates who were not English first-language speakers, although this is expected to increase over time due to Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment policies in South Africa instilled in favour of previously disadvantaged groups since the fall of Apartheid. Academic leaders stated challenges reported by employers to be poor report-writing skills and communication barriers between engineers and other workmen. Literature indicated that large employers are generally forgiving of grammatical errors of non-English-first-language speakers and less forgiving of those whose first language is English (Feutz & Zinser, 2011). Employers of engineers were also found to be most sceptical of language proficiency courses (Osman, 2016;Wolfe et al., 2016). It is the technical aspects of the report that are most important while poor grammar is often overlooked by employers. R1: The problem is we have a lot of labour who don't speak any language other than their mother tongue. And the engineers cannot speak that specific language or languages. So the lack of communication creates social silos inside the organisations and you can see that at any level. And we still find that people are more or less in social silos. Because of the diversity. R4: So for example there's a massive difference between a colloquial type audience versus a professional audience. One might be boring a professional audience because one is talking so fundamentally that they don't just cut to the chase.
Interviewees revealed that many study hopefuls are the first in their family to pursue a degree and have no social capital to ask for guidance. According to Quality Promotions and Assurance (2019), 42% of graduates were the first to graduate in their family and for 65% of graduates, it was their first qualification. Many lacked the background of an engineering hobby or solving practical problems and chose engineering for its gainful employment opportunities. This impacts not only graduate quality for innovation, but also basic practical engineering logic. An academic leader gave a case of graduates knowing complex mathematical calculations yet being unable to assess a home distributor board.
Interviewees indicated their perception that most major employers have accepted that graduates lack experience and accept the responsibility of training them further. Other studies also indicated that the alignment between industry expectations and the reality of new graduates has greatly improved compared to 2005 (Fletcher et al., 2017). Smaller firms however have higher expectations, are less forgiving of shortcomings and often less accommodating of diverse language and cultural backgrounds. Misalignments in expectations often impacted on graduate confidence.
Contrary to graduate questionnaire data which indicated high confidence in tackling unfamiliar problems, planning of work and sourcing and using quality information, academic leaders asserted that industry reports a lack of confidence and an apprehension in new recruits which is in agreement with previous studies (Naidoo & Osman, 2016;Fletcher et al., 2017). Confidence in leading projects was mentioned to be particularly lacking. Interviewees suggested that this mis-alignment may be symptomatic of unrealistic niche expectations imposed by employers.
R2: You'll find that those junior engineers are actually expected to work or perform at a level much higher than those individuals that are in a structured engineer in training programme.
Numerous unreasonable demands from certain companies to teach proficiency in very specific software that they utilise, are typically advised to academic leaders.
Smaller firms employing just a single engineer are also unaware of what to expect and expect too much. An interviewee indicated that some would suggest changes to the entire curriculum. While academic leaders are positioned to dismiss these demands, new graduate employees likely bear the brunt of these demands. In terms of ECSA attributes interviewees listed confidence, independent life-long learning and social skills as prime attributes lacking in many graduates. R6: Independent learning and lifelong learning skills. Social skills. These are the two … Lacking of selfmotivation created by the educational system. Because a lot of students they work towards no goals and they arrive at results. And they have more than one chance every time. So they are so relaxed. And if they are not under pressure they will not be self-motivated.
R7: Individual lifelong learning skill and attitude that can only come through once the person is employed and then you see them working on the job. The distinction is actually quite clear that in terms of the individual when you go into organisations and you see these individuals working on the same level but you'll see one individual that really goes the extra mile in terms of wanting to understand the problem in its entirety.

IV. Conclusions and Recommendations
Engineering graduate expectations of the workplace were surveyed by questionnaire while university academic leaders surveyed by semi-structure interviews. Differing expectations on the importance of soft skills, theory, reporting and presentation between graduates and employers were perceived by interviewees. Key points of concern were high undergraduate workload driving surface learning strategies and a perceived natural employer desire for graduates to be more suited to their niche industry. The reality of maintenance-driven industries clashing with graduate aspirations for design roles and growth was perceived by academic leaders to be a key factor stifling innovation.
The graduate survey found depth in graduate motives including a passion for science and innovation, yet their daily approaches resembled surface strategies, mainly due to the inherently high workload of engineering curricula and other challenges outside of tertiary study as expressed by academic leaders. This was found to be in agreement with data collated by the universities QPA questionnaire.
Interviewees recommended closer ties between university and industry partners to establish a high structured availability of vocational training and postgraduate project creation to improve graduate workplace readiness and expectations, and to provide industry with realistic expectations of graduate 68 Khalid Osman and Cecile N. Gerwel Proches ability. Engineering curricula may also benefit from more focus on topics of social responsibility and environmental sustainability. While the perceptions of academic leaders are evidently insightful and valuable in this topic, of ultimate value would be the experiences and opinions of employers and industry personnel themselves. A much broader and deeper study encompassing the direct surveying of numerous employers is thus recommended. It is acknowledged however that such a study would require considerable resources, incur logistical challenges and require considerable access and ethical clearance that meets all participants needs.
This study is foundational and presents descriptive analysis of statistics. Further insight may be gained through inferential statistical analyses of the data presented in the supplementary material to confirm findings.
Since the data gathered in this study preceded the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, a further recommendation would be to assess the effect of the pandemic in the form of significant changes to remote teaching and learning at universities, reduced industry demand and heightened unemployment, as well as remote modes of working.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.