The road less travelled: Making the ontological shift
L EARNING AND D EVELOPING G RADUATE ATTRIBUTES
2.5 T HE R ESEARCHER ’ S I NTEREST IN THE D EVELOPMENT OF S PECIFIC G RADUATE A TTRIBUTES
First, I reflect on the value of communication skills as a graduate attribute and
expand the initial discussion in Chapter 1. It is my belief that developing
communication skills is important as it prepares students to better engage through
their assessment, enter into dialogue with peers and academics, and formulates
questions to further their learning. It is also integral to preparing for various
professional environments. As noted in 1.4 effective communication skills are
essential for graduates to gain entry to and be successful in their future professions,
and developing effective written, oral and interpersonal communication skills are
likely to play a part in developing students’ emotional intelligence, positioning them
as global citizens.
Furthermore, today’s graduates will need high-level written and oral
communication skills for a range of audience needs. They need to be able to
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articulate it to individuals and groups in an engaging and confident way across
multiple settings.
Communication skills are operationalised in various ways in 2nd and 3rd-year units
offered by the Tasmanian School of Business and Economics (TSBE). The following
examples from units where data was gathered for this study exemplify these
differences in how communication skills are operationalised:
BMA236 Festivals and Event Management:
Written communication and presentations skills of a quality and manner appropriate to festival and event management.
BLD301 Project Evaluation and Planning:
Ability to engage in persuasive, succinct oral discussions to communicate and influence other persons.
Appendix 2 provides extracts of all the 2014 TSBE (BMA - Management and BLD –
Australian Innovation Centre) units from where data were gathered for this study
and includes the two units named. The extracts show how graduate attributes are
operationalised in the various units.
Second, with reference to problem-solving skills my experience suggests that
learning in higher education rarely encompasses the context and support needed
for solving real-world problems. The literature considered the context of the area
of research interest highlights that in everyday life, people solve problems and learn
new and better ways to do things by assessing a problem and then using their
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them (Herrington 2015, p.61, cited in Bozalek et al. 2015). In a higher education
learning environment educators appear to guide students to solve problems in a
manner which will not necessarily serve them in the outside world. My experience
in higher education and the corporate sector has been useful and shown me that
people don’t always employ a logical, sequential manner to solve a problem, and
may simply try one solution based on the best evidence possible, then try another
until a successful outcome is achieved.
To respond to this challenge, and to what appears to be emerging in the research
space, educators need to embrace authentic learning that is student-considered, to
develop the problem-solving skills required for the changing nature of day-to-day
life. A theme that is emerging in the literature is that through observing problem
solving in the real world, and situating learning in the context of its future use,
authentic learning is a viable model for facilitating learning in higher education.
A review of the literature acknowledges that problem-solving skills are essential in
order for students to successfully navigate work-based or relevant and complex
issues in personal and professional life (AC Neilson 2000; Gabric & McFadden 2001;
Clanchy & Ballard 1995; Kavanagh & Drennan 2008). Authentic work-related
problems may assist in developing important skills for career development and/or
lifelong learning opportunities, or at least support student readiness for such
encounters. Evidencing problem solving skills can indicate a student’s ability to
think critically and solve authentic real-world problems that are relevant to future
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Problem-solving skills are operationalised in various ways in 2nd and 3rd-year
subjects offered by TSBE. The following examples from units where data was
gathered for this research exemplify these differences:
BMA341 Industrial Relations:
Think logically, critically and creatively to solve problems related to the practice of industrial relations. Identify contemporary industrial relations issues and recognise potential issues in a business context.
BMA218 Planning and Running Sports and Recreational Events:
The ability to apply logical, critical and creative thinking to complex sports and recreation event management related problems.
A critical grasp of theoretical frameworks and practices, and the ability to integrate and apply those frameworks to problem solution in a sports and recreation event management context.
The third graduate attribute skill I am interested in is social responsibility. My
personal experience has highlighted the challenges of bringing the conversation of
developing social responsibility to the forefront of pedagogical space. It is
important to me, given the array of social problems that exist in society, that
graduates complete their degree with an increased awareness of social problems
and a strengthened capability to search for appropriate solutions. As an educator I
continue to be challenged by the very nature of social responsibility. To me it is
subjective, context-dependent, and interwoven with personal moral values, and is
therefore more complex to embed in pedagogy.
It appears that educators are often unable to clearly define their role in educating
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opportunities that encourage social responsibility as they move through their
undergraduate education (Reason et al. 2013). Authors such as Colby and Sullivan
(2009) refer to social responsibility learning outcomes as ‘distantly connected’ and a
‘by-product’ of higher education (p. 29). Comments from educators and my own
experience suggest that this could be partially attributed to the pressure on
educators to produce grants, research and publications often then crowding out the
learning environment, and reducing the emphasis on developing this and other
graduate attributes.
Educators have commented, as echoed in the literature, that they may de-
emphasise or avoid learning opportunities that promote dialogue with students
related to politics, religion, economics or race relations (Reason et al., 2013). Some
educators report a fear of imposing their own values on students, whilst others
believe that morality is an inherently personal issue or that teaching and learning
should be restricted to analytical skills and discipline or subject matter (Hersh &
Schneider 2005). There is also a valid argument that higher education inescapably
influences students’ values and ethical development. As pointed out in the
literature, ‘education inevitably affects character, either intentionally or
unintentionally’ (Berkowitz 1997, p. 18). However, Kuh (2005) and the feedback
from educators note support for facilitating the development of the whole student
has declined. My observations, reflections and other literature reiterate this
comment, as it appears that educators receive minimal support or preparation to
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students to connect the values implications of their unit topics and themes with
students’ own lives (Hersh & Schneider 2005).
It is argued that any perceived lack of support for educators has implications for
pedagogy adopted by the educator. As Dall’Alba and Barnacle (2007, p. 683)
suggest, students don’t need to know about social responsibility, rather ‘knowledge
is understood and created, embodied and enacted,’ so educators need to find ways
to position social responsibility in the lived experience of students and assist them
to ascertain its relevance to their daily lives.
Another potential reason for the under-development of social responsibility is
mentioned when I reflect on students I have encountered such as ‘Sam’, ‘Isobel’ and
‘Bryan’. My sense is that as students move beyond their first year, they may
become more focused on personal areas of interest such as social networks,
employment and graduation and grow less engaged in learning activities. This
belief is supported by authors such as Checkoway (2001a). Whether students
become less involved, and therefore perceive less higher educational emphasis, or
less higher educational emphasis results in less student involvement, is not clear to
me at this point in time, but the combination of decreased involvement and
decreased perceptions of higher education emphasis may create an environment in
which the development of social responsibility is difficult to maintain over time
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One way that social responsibility skills are operationalised in a 2nd-year unit
offered by TSBE in 2014 (and part of this study) is in the following example:
BLD202 Foundations of Entrepreneurship:
An awareness of global perspectives and issues of social responsibility related to the process of entrepreneurship will be developed during discussion in the workshops.
It is noted that in some units where data was collected, social responsibility was not
articulated as a graduate attribute to be specifically developed. At this juncture it is
useful to return to the literature initially considered in Chapter 1 and highlight the
importance of addressing graduate attribute development and the challenges that
have been highlighted in the literature.
My reflections on my teaching and learning journey, and commentary by
colleagues, lead me to believe that despite a level of recognition regarding the
changing role of higher education there are challenges for educators in developing
graduate attributes. As introduced in Chapter 1 and considered as part of my
reflections in this chapter, one such challenge is the development represented by a
shift from the traditional curriculum focus on content and knowledge to one which
emphasises process (Ewan, 2009). Educator ‘disengagement’ with graduate
attributes is cited by Radloff (2009) as another challenge, so is the concept that
focusing on attributes can encourage the idea that each attribute is an entity in
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conversations and experience tell me that in practice graduate attributes overlap
and are entwined with the content and the intended learning outcomes.
This brings me to an important juncture in the road to graduate attribute
development. I feel as if the road ahead is less travelled and requires educators to
embrace a number of steps to engage with the potential of students, yet the
challenge is that ‘while there is a plethora of research investigating the
development of graduate attributes, there is still some uncertainty’ about how
graduate attributes are best developed (Smith & Bath 2006, cited in Kember 2009,
p. 39).
As I ponder my students’ destinies and the role I have as an educator to support
them on their learning journey, I am cognisant that many Australian higher
education institutions have yet to develop clear strategies for developing and
assessing graduate attributes within their specific disciplinary contexts (Barrie 2005;
de la Harpe et al. 2000; Green et al. 2009). Adding to my concerns, and as outlined
in Chapter 1, there is confusion about how graduate attributes should be taught,
assessed and evaluated, and how their ’adoption should ultimately shape teaching
practices in higher education’ (Green et al. 2009, pp. 18).