Evaluating engagement with graduate outcomes across higher education institutions in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Graduate attributes: implications for higher education practice and policy

“…There is ongoing and renewed interest in graduate skills in the United States (Solem, Cheung, & Schlemper, 2008). In New Zealand, however, graduate attributes have gained momentum more recently following development of the New Zealand Qualifications Framework (Spronken-Smith et al, 2015). Overall, it is fair to say that graduate attributes are increasingly being used to inform curriculum design and engagement with teaching and learning experiences at universities around the world (Barrie, 2007).…”

“…These include the processes of designating and implementing such attributes within, across and beyond curricula. Research shows that, combined with strong leadership from senior management and institutional enabling structures (de la Harpe & David, 2012;Spronken-Smith et al, 2015), there needs to be a balancing of disciplinary content and generic graduate attributes, and of academic "contemplative" versus business-minded "instrumental" orientations to knowledge (Bradshaw, 1992). An important role has been highlighted for academic staff in the implementation of graduate attributes in order to take ownership of institutionally derived descriptors and to make them relevant to disciplines (Chapple & Tolley, 2000).…”

“…This hierarchy develops from graduate attributes as specific knowledge, skills and values, through graduate profiles that refer to the summation of attributes at either programme or institutional level, culminating in the term "graduate outcome," which is used to encompass both graduate attributes and graduate profiles. For this symposium, we adopt the term graduate attributes as per Spronken-Smith et al (2015), viewing them as skills, knowledge, attitudes and values that are distinguished from the disciplinary expertise associated more traditionally with higher education, but which make a contribution to the profession. Graduate attributes are broader and more encompassing than "employability," helping to develop academic, citizenship and career competencies.…”

Quality as sense-making

“…Quality as fitness for purpose is consistent with the alignment of courses and programmes to specified learning objectives and graduate attributes that has become a feature of mass higher education systems such as Australia and the United Kingdom (Spronken-Smith et al, 2015). While it is perhaps the most inclusive and least confronting model of quality it is also the conception most subject to political influence.…”

“…The use of qualifications in particular acts as a form of closed discourse (Filippakou, 2011) preventing a consideration of a wider set of qualities potentially of value to society. The growing importance of generic attributes as a measure of educational outcomes (Gibbs, 2010;Spronken-Smith et al, 2015) suggests that the limitations of qualifications in their traditional sense are apparent to the sector.…”