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Relating PDP, employability, etc.
This page presents a view of how several areas relate to each other.
It does (will do) so using 3 different representations:
A diagram, like a concept map (actually more like a Venn diagram).
An indented list
A glossary of terms
At the moment all explanation is still hidden away on another page:
http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/qee/#educ.
I guess I have 2 ideas represented in the diagram here:
PDP has 3 aspects; employability is just one.
Employability is a big spectrum: graduate attributes is just one of 5
levels.
I need a new and additional diagram, which I've never drawn, to express
the different aspects of RTlinks; only some relate to employability, though
all relate to being an academic and teaching.
Another whole diagram or concept space is needed to look at retention,
though my pages on that are relatively well organised. There's a significant
interaction or overlap, because PDP is partly about "being a student", and
dropouts are often to do with failing to make the transition to being an
effective student. And also an overlap with employability if, as we probably
should, we take seriously that the biggest graduate attribute / job
requirement is having learned how to learn, especially without a teacher (i.e.
how to do LLL).
Personal Development Planning
- Life goals
- Wealth
- Fulfillment ("self-actualization")
- Family
- Being a student, studying
Managing what you want to learn and how you go about it.
- Integration
- LTP mgt; time mgt; self-regulation
- (Other) Study skills
- Future employability
Levels of benefit from HE.
- The ultimate unmeasured value of HE
- A critical appreciation of the virtues and limitations of the
discipline studied
- Graduate attributes e.g. critical thinking
- Making convincing job applications, based on accumulated evidence
of the claims (assembling a PD portfolio).
- Low level employability features e.g. spreadsheet skills
Most academics just express bewilderment (followed by antipathy) when asked to
act on these topics. However a few basic points are important to realise,
and go a long way to making it more practicable.
- These topics or initiatives overlap, in many cases by a great amount.
The first and most important step is to recognise this overlap: the concept
map on this page is a start in addressing this.
- It follows that many features of teaching address several of these issues
at once, and should be used as "replies" to several.
It may be regrettable that these initiatives do not themselves acknowledge
these connections. However for practical action, the first step is to work out
the overlaps, and realise that it is quite easy to make each concrete
action address multiple "issues".
- For all these issues, past and current courses and programmes already
address these issues in important ways: re-labelling when dealing with reports
on the issues is all that is needed.
The Glossary on this page is a first step to help with this.
Or to put it another way: instead of assuming that a new initiative with a new
buzz word requires new action, review what teachers are already doing that in
fact implicitly but substantially addresses the "new" issue.
- Likewise, review what learners are already doing that in
fact implicitly but substantially addresses the "new" issue.
- The main defect in most departments' approach to these issues is not the
complete absence of good practice, but failing to review and deliver provision
over the degree programme as a whole. Integrated review over all years, and
adjusting provision as necessary.
- Easy access to case studies of good practice, preferably in EVERY
discipline, is useful, and may well be enough to support addressing each issue
fully.
- Avoiding the fallacy, which many academics fall into, of presupposing
that a rigid course structure is necessary that provides teaching for the
issue at just one time. This is important for normal subject teaching,
perhaps especially in science, because later courses must rely on students
having mastered material in earlier courses. But this does not apply to these
issues of personal development, preparation for work, etc. On the contrary,
they are only likely to have any impact on students if done when the
individual student is ready to be interested in them, and find them relevant.
Thus the default approach, instead of being scheduled rigidly for just one
semester within the degree, should be that the student must complete them
before graduation but can do them when they think best.
I haven't come across any practical actions in this area with direct objective
evidence of effectiveness. However here are some practical actions that each
department could take that seem worthwhile to me.
- Imitate
Simon Bates' survey of recent graduates to discover what they
found useful and lacking in their degree programme when starting their first
jobs. I think this is something every department could and should do.
A question they did ask in the interviews (but missed on the questionnaire)
was "What was lacking in their degree programme that they now wish they'd been
taught?".
They "recruited" their respondents by composing an email which their Alumni
office was willing to forward to their list of graduates from the department.
(A longer report on this may be done over the summer.)
- Bushnell, Ian W. R. (2007)
Life after university : a personal development programme
(Pearson Custom Publishing)
Ian Bushnell's new textbook may make it significantly easier for other
departments to create a course on PDP that suits their students.
His book was based on the professional skills course he runs for psychology
level 3 students, but is written for graduates in any discipline.
Far from assuming a knowledge of psychology, it offers a quick briefing for
any student on what they can expect from employers' selection methods
(interviews, personality tests, ...) where appropriate. However it is mainly
a mix of how to prepare for jobs and job applications with how a student
can select job types that will suit them personally. That is, it is
basically a course for students on PDP: how to construct a conscious
understanding of what you want from the world of work, what you have (as
skills, as abilities), and how to communicate the latter (with evidence) to
employers you think might be good for you.
- There is simple software called
"the interviewer"
from Sheffield Hallam University, published by Gower, which we use to give
students an experience of being interviewed. No academic staff time required,
just a technician to make it happen. They do it in groups (giving each other
comments on their performance). Almost all students give positive feedback on
this, even though it is elementary practice for those who have never yet
really had a job interview.
- Each department could create and maintain a document of the kinds of
(graduate) skills its graduates could boast about and support with evidence.
An example applying to our graduates in the year 2008 is
here.
Unless you think that these issues can all be implemented without much
connection to existing courses e.g. by separate, centrally delivered,
activities -- and a lot of evidence is against this -- then these issues need
to be taken on by regular, discipline-based academic staff.
The thing ordinary staff most need is a way of understanding how these issues
relate to each other, and to the main considerations underpinning course
and degree programme design currently: let's call it a "roadmap".
There are two reasons this is needed.
Firstly, to translate the terms into language that is understood in the
discipline. One big part of the issue is that the educational and
administrative literatures naturally have their own terminology, but it is not
standard English and has no clear meaning for other staff.
The other, is to help academics recognise what it is in their own standard
practice that in fact currently supports each of the new issues already.
Secondly, these issues all interact, and are to some degree in conflict.
Consequently no rational and responsible course designer or course
team leader can pay any attention to a "new" issue like retention or
employability without also first knowing a) what other issues it interacts
with, and b) what should be done worse in order to do better on the new
issue. This is a standard design tradeoff situation. It does not mean that
it is a zero sum game where you must lose as much under one heading as you
gain under another: on the contrary, good design is about optimising
compromises. But almost always, you will do less well under each heading than
you would if that alone was your sole concern. For instance, if you want to
improve retention regardless of anything else, then much the best move is to
reduce or eliminate "widening participation"; but if you want to do well on
both, then intelligent design can probably improve your score at the worse of
the two, while reducing your score on the other only a bit. One of the things
you may do worse on is holding down costs: to achieve everything you used to
plus something more may be possible if more resources are spent on it. Since
one important resource is student time, it may mean lengthening courses or
increasing student debt because they cannot work so many hours of part time
paid employment.
However far too much of the literature, and of policy and strategy documents,
fail to acknowledge these basic realities. This makes them fundamentally
unrealistic and so irrational; and consequently to be resisted by anyone who
takes their responsibilities to students seriously.
What is needed then is:
- To list all the "new" factors and their
inter-relationships,
- But then also list (make explicit) the "old" factors
i.e. the academic values underlying each discipline's degree programmes, and
their inter-relationships with all other factors.
- Give an order of priority for all of these.
- A discussion for each factor of what you might do if it were the top or
sole priority: this can help to make clear ideal tactics, what would be
sacrificed if they were used, and generally clarify the earlier points.
