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The world we live in is full of complexities and uncertainties, with almost daily commentary in the media of the threat posed by technology on employment, society and the economy. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4), many fresh graduates find themselves in a precarious situation as they arguably lack some of the skills that are required for a highly digitised twenty first century job market (Turner, et al., (2020)). As higher educational establishments continue to create an ever increasing pool of graduates entering the workforce, the question around what is being taught and how it is being taught in the context of its appropriateness to a disruptive employment market is gathering momentum. The graduate work readiness debate “has raised concerns about the impact on the employability of recent graduates and the potential mismatches between their skills and the competences required by the job structure” (Figueiredo, et al., 2017, p. 1401). This widening skills gap is a cause for concern for everyone involved in education, learners, education providers and employers and compounded by the fact that many “employers are not even sure which university produces the better graduates since there now exists a large number of qualitatively diverse set of graduates for recruitment” (Rasiah, 2009, p.5). How ready are our future graduates for the working world? This pertinent question needs to be considered seriously if we want to advance in a highly fluid and constantly transforming world. The readiness of our graduates depends on how we, in higher educational institutions, best prepare them for the challenges of the future workplace, workspace and the community at large.
Previous studies have explored university led initiatives and their respective relationships with student learning and graduate employability. These initiatives include, business engagement (work-based learning, (WBL) and internships), re-thinking the learning space, and the design of the curriculum to include design thinking, data and digital management and emotional intelligence (Daley & Sequeira, 2018; Galloway, Marks and Chillas, 2014; Ghosh, 2017; Jameson et al., 2016; Knemeyer, 2015; Rasiah, Turner, & Ho, 2019; Renganathan, Karim and Li, 2012; Stigliani, 2017). Reflection on the role of assessments has also received academic attention in the context of simulations, games and real-world assessments (Avramenko, 2012; Elangkovan and Turner, 2019; King and Newman, 2009; Turner and Mulholland, 2017; Vos and Brenan, 2010) as well as its role in student learning and skills development (Dunn & Mulvenon, 2009; Hill, 2011; Jenkins, 2010; Yorke, 2003). The issue of assessments however is a thorny one with no universal agreement surrounding the relationship between assessments, feedback and learning, as argued by Yorke (2003), p.482-483 “assessment is critically important for student learning. Without informative feedback on what they do, students will have relatively little by which to chart their development”.
The relationship between assessment, student learning and graduate employability has also involved the integration of technology in recent times. The application of technology into curriculum design, modular delivery and assessment is known to have a positive impact on students’ learning experience and is often advised as a best practice by effective educators (Heaslip et al., 2014; Wu, Wu and Li, 2019). Instructional technology is a much discussed topic currently within higher education (Miller, 2014) not only because of its linkage to the disruptive employment market but also because of its importance to the way young learners interact with each other and material they have to learn. The necessity to introduce and integrate technology into education is gaining traction, particularly in so-called developing countries. In the case of Malaysia, this is clearly evidenced in the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education) in which Shift 9: Globalised Online Learning, highlights the need for Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs) in Malaysia to gradually gear towards the full implementation of blended learning (Malaysian Education Blueprint, 2015).