Students’ reflections as tools for curriculum alignment strategies in media practice pedagogy: a postgraduate conversion course case study

Many universities have responded to radical contemporary shifts in the media industry by embedding more digital skill into their curricula. Disruptive technologies, the social media boom, media convergence, the shifting sands of the broadcasting industry and constant change in employment requirements for graduates today are all forcing media graduates to consider how improving their technical skills is a key vector in their own perceptions of their employability, post-graduation. One-year media and broadcast conversion courses can lead to more work opportunities, new specialisms and entrepreneurial ownership of career prospects. Broadcast skills like filming, editing, audio recording, harvesting of natural sound or live studio environments are less commonly taught, even though streaming is a form of broadcasting. Student confidence in their own broadcast technical skill acquisition ability is an important factor in the era of convergence media, and it can determine students’ course success and employment opportunities post-graduation. Teaching media and broadcast technical skills a media conversion course necessitates important planning due to complex factors such as multi-module learning outcomes as well as student previous experience and background. Taking the MA Media and Broadcast Production conversion degree at Queen’s University Belfast as a case study, this paper qualitatively explores pedagogical interventions that can help redress lagging student confidence and perceptions of employability vis-a-vis their technical broadcast skill acquisition level in a postgraduate media conversion context. While the findings of this study show that the introduction of broadcast technical skill to the curriculum strongly correlates with students’ growing confidence in both the production of quality assessment and the strength level of employment applications, this study is limited in scope. While this study provides rich qualitative data about students’ confidence levels, a wider pool of students should be considered on a longitudinal basis to better determine the employment prospects impact such skill labs have.