Where am I now and where do I want to be? Developing awareness of graduate attributes in pre-honours students.

Abstract

There is increasing emphasis on the importance of making Graduate Attributes (GAs) explicit to students as part of their degree programme and the role of students themselves in proactively developing GAs. The aim of the present project was to encourage students to actively develop and reflect upon curricular and extra-curricular attributes at an earlier stage in their degree programme. To this end we developed and evaluated shortself-reflection exercises in second year (prehonours) psychology practical classes which asked students to reflect on their curricular and extra-curricular activities and on how the practical skills gained from these activities are linked to graduate attributes. Activities were followed by careers workshops focused on gaining confidence in communicating graduate attributes in an interview context, and the benefits of engaging with professional networking sites. We evaluated the impact of these activities on: 1) students' levels of selfefficacy in specific GAs before and after the inclass exercises; 2) students' confidence in presenting their GAs in an interview situation; 3) student awareness of professional networking sites. The activities resulted in increased self-efficacy ratings after the GAS reflection, increased confidence in presenting 1 http://www.gla.ac.uk/students/attributes/

Publishing with dissertation students: A covert strategy for developing psychology students’ employability skills?

“…To illustrate, published articles as shown by the two students who managed to publish findings from their psychology projects, are regarded as concrete demonstrations of students' knowledge and skills, e.g. critical thinking, research skills, teamwork, problem-solving, time management (see Swingler et al, 2016). Anecdotal conversations with them and other students who publish articles based on their research highlight the unique and authentic manner by which they learn further concerning research dissemination.…”

“…Following the HEA employability framework, 'graduate attributes' in the University of Glasgow refer to 'the academic abilities, personal qualities and transferable skills which all students will have the opportunity to develop as part of their University of Glasgow experience' (http://www.gla.ac.uk/students/attributes/). These attributes vary and include development of their confidence through project participation, critical thinking and research skills through essay writing, ability to work in a team, problem-solving, and time management -to name but a few (see Nicol 2010, cited in Swingler et al, 2016).…”

Student perceptions of quality in higher education: effect of year of study, gender and ethnicity.

“…This suggests that in this university students recognise and value the multiple types of learning experiences offered to them. This matters because teaching methods which encourage complex learning enhances employability (Nicol, 2010;Knight & Yorke, 2003), an expectation of higher education (O'Leary, 2016;Swingler et al, 2016;Blackmore et al, 2016). Students need to understand how important graduate attributes are, acknowledge what skills they are developing through different assignments, activities and tasks, and why it is important that they can demonstrate them (Green et al, 2009).…”