Developing an evidence-based pedagogical framework through investigation of current practice in teaching employability skills inherent to online groupwork

Abstract

Teaching implicit employability skills in higher education is challenged by the dearth of scholarly literature and institutional structures promoting and supporting a common pedagogical approach. A need to gather empirical evidence of current pedagogical approaches exists so that a pedagogical framework can be developed to support teaching academics in their design and facilitation of integrative teaching. To achieve an empirically evidenced framework this research employs a grounded theory methodology to examine the teaching of online collaboration (online groupwork) skills in the context of online undergraduate business programs. This paper reports on pedagogical content knowledge data analysed from in-depth interviews of online teaching business academics. Pedagogical concepts and related strategies are discovered, educational theories supporting pedagogical concepts are discussed, and a framework is proposed.