Re-thinking graduate attributes: From skills and employability to education Anna Jones Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning and Caledonian Academy

What are graduate attributes? University statement of aspirations and distinctiveness Guide for curriculum design and teaching and assessment practice Guide for students in articulating their capabilities and learning experience

Employability Assumption that higher education should take (some) responsibility for employability ‘Education and training [should] enable people in an advanced society to compete with the best in the world. (Dearing Report, NCIHE 1997:para 1.11) But questions about the role of higher education in developing economic capital (Morley 2001), whether education can develop employability (Atkins 1999) Definitions– employment destinations, personal achievements/potential, lifelong learning

The contested nature of attributes ‘theoretically threadbare’ Definitions Transferability Employability One size fits all Multiple stakeholders Application

Some dubious assumptions Determinate Definable Measurable Transferable

Situated nature of attributes Notions of trans or super disciplinary skills is problematic Disciplinary epistemology and departmental/institutional culture shape understandings of attributes Meaningful teaching and learning of attributes is contextual and situated

Application Academic resistance to meaningless, decontextualised ‘tick-box’ approach Attributes as defined out of, taught and assessed within the disciplinary/interdisciplinary contexts

Are specifiable outcomes are desirable - or rather preparing students for the uncertainties of the ‘real’ world How do we present complexity so that students can face the unforeseen? Newman (1920: 92-3) ‘A habit of mind is formed which lasts through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation and wisdom... This then I would assign as the special fruit of the education furnished at a University’

Moving Forward Attributes in the formal and informal curriculum Examine attributes in the disciplines/interdisciplines – how they are defined and taught, how this can be enhanced. Communities of practice (Wenger 1998) TLR’s (Trowler & Cooper 2002) Examine co-curricula attribute development and how the university can facilitate this

Specifics of skills sit within disciplinary epistemology – the means it gives us, ideas it enables us to think critically about Attributes are more ontological – the disposition or willingness to think, challenge, dig beneath the surface Thus ‘graduateness’ can be both embedded in disciplinary systems and transcend them

From skills and employability to education Move away from ‘spin’ or ‘quality’ Use attributes as a way of sharpening the focus on education – what it means, what the university values, how it can facilitate this – both in the formal and co curriculum Employment market in a state of constant flux Education for a whole person – personal, professional, social

Move away from the ‘thin morality’ of competitive individualism to the ‘thick morality’ of citizenship and the common good (Apple 2001).