When work-integrated learning is discussed, the image that most readily comes to mind is a student leaving campus to spend several weeks in a workplace. Placements remain an important part of many courses, but they can also be difficult to secure, supervise and make equally accessible to every student.
The obvious question, therefore, is whether students can gain meaningful workplace experience without undertaking a formal placement.
The answer is yes, but with an important qualification. Moving a conventional assignment into a simulated workplace setting does not automatically make it work-integrated learning. The experience still requires an authentic purpose, meaningful involvement from outside the institution and a deliberate connection between academic learning and professional practice.
What counts as work-integrated learning?
The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency recognises that work-integrated learning can include virtual experiences, industry-partnered classroom projects and simulated work environments, as well as conventional placements.
Recent scholarly work provides a useful way to distinguish these activities from ordinary project-based learning. A well-designed WIL experience involves the student, the educational institution and an external stakeholder. It also gives students an authentic, purposeful task that is intentionally incorporated into the curriculum.
In other words, students do not necessarily need to enter a workplace, but the world of work must genuinely enter the learning experience.
Five work-integrated learning examples
1. An industry-supplied problem
An organisation can provide students with a genuine problem, relevant background information and a clear description of the required outcome. Students might investigate a process, analyse information or develop a proposed solution before presenting their findings to the partner.
A non-placement engineering case study found encouraging evidence that this type of industry-based project could help students develop creativity and teamwork. However, its findings were qualitative and specific to one educational context, so they should be treated as promising rather than universal.
2. A simulated internship
A simulated internship recreates selected workplace conditions within a supported educational environment. Students can be assigned professional roles, deadlines, client requirements and workplace-style deliverables while educators retain control over the learning experience.
Research involving an Australian undergraduate accounting program found that a simulated internship produced cognitive, practical and personal learning outcomes. It also found that students’ previous work experience influenced what they gained from the simulation. This matters: the same activity will not necessarily serve every student in the same way.
3. An industry-facilitated case
A case becomes more authentic when an industry partner helps design it, participates as a client and provides feedback. Students can conduct a client meeting, identify the underlying problem and present recommendations, just as they might in professional practice.
An Australian study of industry-facilitated case-based learning in accounting reported positive student perceptions of the development and transferability of disciplinary skills. As a small case study, it cannot establish that the approach will produce identical results elsewhere, but it offers a useful model for course teams to adapt.
4. A short industry challenge
Not every WIL activity needs to run for an entire semester. A tightly structured challenge, hackathon or innovation project can ask teams to respond to a real problem within a limited period.
The external partner’s role should extend beyond supplying a topic. The partner might explain the context, answer questions and respond to the students’ proposals. Without that interaction, the challenge risks becoming a conventional classroom competition carrying an industry label.
5. A virtual industry or community project
Digital collaboration can allow students to work with an organisation regardless of location. A virtual project might include an online briefing, scheduled consultations, collaborative project work and a final presentation delivered to the partner.
This can broaden participation, particularly where travel or placement availability is a barrier. Nevertheless, virtual delivery does not remove the need for supervision, accessibility, reliable technology or meaningful feedback. The task must still matter to someone beyond the classroom.
Removing the placement does not remove the responsibility
Non-placement WIL should not be treated as a simple or inexpensive substitute for sending students into workplaces. External partners require clear expectations, students require preparation and support, and educators remain responsible for assessment and educational quality.
TEQSA also emphasises student safety, wellbeing, equity, supervision and appropriate grievance processes. A simulation that bears little resemblance to professional practice may fail to achieve its intended purpose, no matter how polished it appears.
Placements may provide greater proximity to the everyday culture and uncertainty of a real workplace. Non-placement models offer different advantages, including greater control, potential scalability and opportunities to include students who might otherwise face barriers. The appropriate choice depends on the learning outcome rather than the apparent novelty of the format.
A practical first step
Course teams can begin by selecting one existing assessment and asking three questions:
- Is an external industry or community partner meaningfully involved?
- Does the task have an authentic purpose or useful outcome?
- Is the experience deliberately connected to learning outcomes, feedback and assessment?
If one of these elements is missing, the next step is not to redesign the entire course. It is to prepare a one-paragraph partner brief describing the problem, the proposed student output, the timeframe and the feedback being requested.
That brief can then form the basis of a conversation with one suitable industry or community organisation.
Formal placements will continue to play an important role in preparing students for employment. However, when a placement is not practical, carefully designed alternatives can bring professional expectations, external perspectives and authentic problems into the curriculum. The location may change. The connection to real work must remain.
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