How to Engage Students in Developing their Soft Skills – A Case Study

Christophe Mallet , CEO of Bodyswaps
February 27th 2023

About

Located in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, City of Wolverhampton College has 4,500 students enrolled as of 2010.

The college was formed in September 1999 as the result of a merger of Wulfrun College in Wolverhampton and Bilston Community College in Bilston.

In 2017, the college was graded ‘Good’ by Ofsted and holds four core values:

  • Student Engagement – We value Students
  • Student Success – We value success & progression
  • Business Success – We value sustainable business
  • People Engagement – We value role models

In late January, the college partnered with Bodyswaps to deploy the full-range of the Bodyswaps library to their students to increase the confidence on essential soft skills within communication and interviews.

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Adam Dwight, Lecturer in Education Studies & Professional Development and Learning Innovator at City of Wolverhampton College, shares his insights of the impact of the partnership so far:
 

I’m excited to share with you the fantastic success we have had using Bodyswaps at City of Wolverhampton College.

Over the past six months, we have provided the opportunity for over 200 students to immerse themselves in the full Bodyswaps experience using our Meta Quest 2 Headsets, and we plan to extend this to over 350 students by the end of March [2023].

We have focused on the modules in Bodyswaps that link to the soft skills necessary for students to progress into further study and employment. Specifically, we have leveraged the interview simulations and public speaking modules to help our students develop the skills they need to excel in the workforce. Our students have responded positively to the Bodyswaps experience, with overwhelmingly positive feedback.

Adam Dwight
Lecturer in Education Studies & Professional Development and Learning Innovator at City of Wolverhampton College

 

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In fact, only 10% of students did not want to continue developing their personal skills using Bodyswaps.

We have found that the resources work best with Level 3 groups or with lower-level groups where students have high levels of digital literacy.
Our next steps for this project are to measure the impact of Bodyswaps in terms of developing specific soft skills linked to employability. To achieve this, we plan to develop an accurate measure of these employability skills before students work through the Bodyswaps modules and then again after the immersive experience. We are identifying appropriate groups that complete courses where the main objective is for the student to find employment at the end of the course.

To bring this case study to life, we are eager to capture student interviews with feedback on their experiences with Bodyswaps. We are thrilled to share this success story and look forward to continuing to work with Bodyswaps to help our students excel.

Adam Dwight
Lecturer in Education Studies & Professional Development and Learning Innovator at City of Wolverhampton College

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