Critical Reflections and Recommendations Derived from Providing Over 20,000 Hours of Practicum Industry Placements for Tertiary Students in Exercise Science, Sport and Fitness

Abstract

More than 30 of the 43 universities in Australia offer an exercise science and/or sport science degree programs. In the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector, more than 160 Registered Training Organisations offer Australian Government approved fitness training courses. The paper is a self-reflective exercise based upon mentoring placement students from multiple registered course providers from the VET sector fitness strand. Combined with reflection on apparently healthy general population hours for placement students from six Sydney city and one regional New South Wales based universities this represented evaluation of more than 200 students and more than 20,000 placement supervision hours. This observation was based upon student placements conducted over the previous seven years, though a significant proportion of the students surveilled were from the previous 36 months. A number of recommendations were developed that may be relevant not just for health, fitness and exercise and sport science courses, but also may be relevant to industry mentorship across a range of fields.