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Between 2020 and 2022, the University of Waterloo rapidly hired and trained over 1000 undergraduate co-operative education (co-op) students as part of the Online Learning Assistant (OLA) Program, to support faculty (i.e., course instructors) in the transition to online teaching. Our research findings suggest that these co-op hires were incredibly beneficial to many faculty, with their efforts ultimately leading to improvements in teaching and learning.

This study explores how students’ gender and work experience are associated with the amount of time they spend working together on tasks with supervisors during their co-operative education (co-op) experiences. We also examine how the time spent working together on tasks with supervisors affects students’ self-reported learning.

This research study explored the kinds of friendships co-op students make on work terms and how they are impacted by remote work. We also examined the impacts of these friendships on outcomes that are important to both students and employers.  

Résumé critiques are one of the most popular services offered by career services at post-secondary institutions. Researchers wanted to know if using an artificial intelligence-based (“AI”) résumé critique tool prior to an in-person critique would influence the student’s critique experience and learning outcomes.

Work-integrated learning (WIL) programs often partner with career services centers to support WIL students throughout the job search process, and résumé critiques are among the most popular career services that WIL students might access. 

Researchers conducted a study to test whether students can be “primed” to be more open to job postings that may seem unrelated to their interests or academic program.

The focus of the project is on an intervention recently introduced by Co-operative & Experiential Education, called (WE) Accelerate, which aims to upwardly “accelerate” first work-term students from unemployment to meaningful employment in future work terms. 

Despite the challenges and hardships individuals experienced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, these unfortunate circumstances presented a unique opportunity to study widespread organizational change in the context of co-operative education.

Designed by a previous co-op student, this study explored how students perceived the relevance of a co-op role by reading a job description.

Two previous co-op students designed a study to explore the emotional well-being of engineering co-op students during their first recruitment term to develop a better understanding of what aspects of the co-op process are particularly stressful for students.