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The IEC Catalyst , June 2010

 

Co-op students earn the highest salaries:
Study measures the effects of co-op

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By John Morris, Communications and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo

Co-op students earn the highest salaries and get the most prestigious jobs after graduation, a major study led by Waterloo researchers concludes. Even after co-op and regular students are matched for family background, academic achievement in secondary school and post-secondary field of study, there is still a co-op advantage.

Maureen Drysdale, a professor of psychology at St. Jerome's University, and John Goyder, a professor of sociology on the main campus, are the co-investigators of the three-phase study, the first and largest of its kind. It examines the role of co-operative education in the transition from post-secondary education to the labour market.

Using data collected by Statistics Canada in its Youth in Transition Survey, researchers tracked close to 10,000 students from their high school days (in 2000) through to their campus careers and to their early years in the work force (in 2006). The study compares university co-op students with university regular (non-co-op) students, as well as college co-op students with college regular students.

"Co-op students earn the highest salaries and get the most prestigious jobs after graduation compared with their non-co-op peers," says Drysdale, who is also a research associate with the Waterloo Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education.

Researchers looked at the students' transition characteristics from high school to campus, including gender, grades, homework habits, sense of belonging and interests. They then reviewed the students' post-secondary education characteristics — fields of study, grades, job market skills — and compared co-op students with non-co-op students. Finally, they explored the students' transition characteristics from university to work, taking into account their salaries, job satisfaction and prestige, along with their skills in computing, writing and problem-solving.

The study finds that a student’s decision to enter a post-secondary co-op program is not a random occurrence at either the college or university levels. Gender and socio-economic status are important, with women more likely to be in co-op at the college level and men at the university level. Co-op also appears to assist access to post-secondary education: those from lower socio-economic families are most likely to be in co-op.

And more: a student entering a university co-op program tends to be especially studious and serious. This student enjoys a better relationship with teachers, has a strong work ethic, scores higher grades and has fewer close friends. The student also tends toward engineering, applied and physical sciences and mathematics.

Meanwhile, the typical college co-op student, while working harder and achieving higher grades than a non-co-op peer, feels less respect from high school teachers. The college bound co-op student tends to express an interest in the fine and applied arts and the humanities.

Grades for university co-op students are significantly higher than for university regular, college co-op and college regular students. But the grades are not a function of entering characteristics: gender, socio-economic status and high school performance do not predict university performance.

The researchers also report that during post-secondary studies, the "serious student syndrome" seems to disappear. And co-op and non-co-op students have similar relationship patterns with friends and professors and similar work habits — attendance, keeping up with assignments and meeting deadlines.

Drysdale and her colleagues speculate that higher postsecondary grades for co-op students could be a transfer-of learning-factor, as the co-op work experience brings something back to the classroom and ensures better connections between theory and practice.

Co-op and non-co-op students in university and college all agreed that after their second year of post-secondary studies, they had acquired the skills and abilities to do well and plan for the future.

After graduation, university co-op students reported higher salaries in their first year in the workforce. Setting aside the effects of gender, field of study, socio-economic status, post-secondary grades, length of time employed and hours worked per week, the researchers found co-op graduates are making 15 per cent, or $5,075 per year, more than other grads.

Co-op students were also in more prestigious jobs than their non co-op peers. University co-op graduates also assessed themselves as having better computing, mathematical and problem-solving skills.

Phase 4 of the study — tracking the same co-op and non co-op students during their careers — is currently underway.

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