Keyskills

Key Skills Guide
Engineering Subject Centre Guide:
Supporting Key Skills in Engineering
January 2005
Acknowledgements
This guide draws heavily on the work of the Centre for Developing and Evaluating Lifelong
Learning (CDELL), School of Education, The University of Nottingham.
Edited by Engineering Subject Centre staff.
Published by The Higher Education Academy – Engineering Subject Centre
ISBN 9781904804594
© 2005 The Higher Education Academy – Engineering Subject Centre
Contents
1 Introducing and Supporting Key Skills in Undergraduate Engineering Courses............... 1
2 A Rationale for Key Skills................................................................................................ 2
2.1 Defining key skills .................................................................................................... 2
2.2 Key skills and learning ............................................................................................. 2
2.3 Key skills and learning in specialist areas, such as engineering............................... 3
3 Which Key Skills? ........................................................................................................... 5
3.1 Key Skills ................................................................................................................. 5
3.2 What are the key skills? ........................................................................................... 5
3.3 The QCA model of classification .............................................................................. 5
3.4 Other descriptions.................................................................................................... 6
3.5 Employers' views ..................................................................................................... 6
3.6 Views from HE course tutors.................................................................................... 6
3.7 Defining key skills in a particular degree programme ............................................... 7
4 Programme Audits .......................................................................................................... 9
4.1 Using the question checklists................................................................................... 9
5 How Can Key Skills Be Specified?................................................................................ 17
5.1 Making decisions about key skills .......................................................................... 17
5.2 Creating a rough framework for the skill................................................................. 17
5.3 Deciding on a specification structure...................................................................... 19
5.4 Thinking about level............................................................................................... 21
5.5 Thinking about assessment ................................................................................... 22
5.6 Outcome statements.............................................................................................. 23
5.7 Testing and evaluating a specification ................................................................... 23
6 Managing Key Skills ..................................................................................................... 25
6.1 Top down vs bottom up.......................................................................................... 25
6.2 Integrated vs freestanding .................................................................................... 25
6.3 Off the shelf vs a customised product .................................................................... 26
7 Motivating And Supporting Staff.................................................................................... 28
7.1 Staff concerns over key skills................................................................................. 28
7.2 Selling the idea of key skills ................................................................................... 28
7.3 Volunteers and conscripts developing ownership ................................................ 29
7.4 Who do staff learn best from? ................................................................................ 29
8 Teaching And Learning Key Skills................................................................................. 32
8.1 Why different teaching and learning styles are needed .......................................... 32
8.2 What different teaching and learning styles are there?........................................... 32
8.3 Quality of the learning environment........................................................................ 33
9 Motivating Students ...................................................................................................... 35
9.1 What motivates a student to learn?........................................................................ 35
9.2 Valuing key skills ................................................................................................... 35
9.3 Key skills matched to individual needs................................................................... 36
10 Support For Students ................................................................................................ 40
10.1 What motivates a student to learn? .................................................................... 40
10.2 Support needed to improve key skills achievement ............................................ 40
10.3 Support for students and where it is located....................................................... 41
10.4 Implications for the department to provide student support................................. 41
11 Being a Graduate ...................................................................................................... 44
11.1 Progression from graduation questions for discussion ..................................... 44
11.2 Student views..................................................................................................... 44
11.3 Employers' views................................................................................................ 45
11.4 Adapting to new situations.................................................................................. 45
11.5 Recognising skills............................................................................................... 46
11.6 Quality and Learning .......................................................................................... 46
12 Assessment And Accreditation.................................................................................. 48
12.1 What are the benefits from assessing key skills? ............................................... 48
12.2 How can key skills be assessed and recorded? ................................................. 48
12.3 Making judgements of performance.................................................................... 49
12.4 Objectivity, reliability, quantity and quality........................................................... 49
12.5 Who to involve in the assessment process......................................................... 49
12.6 The management of evidence ............................................................................ 50
12.7 Recording outcomes of assessment................................................................... 50
12.8 Accreditation ...................................................................................................... 51
13 Graduate Employability ............................................................................................. 56
13.1 Why key skills are important for graduates ......................................................... 56
14 Departmental Agenda Items...................................................................................... 60
14.1 About the agendas for a department .................................................................. 60
15 Resources for Introducing and Supporting Key Skills ................................................ 63
15.1 Universities with key skills resources available online ........................................ 63
15.2 Engineering Subject Centre Resources.............................................................. 64
15.3 National Key Skills Projects................................................................................ 65
15.4 Other sources..................................................................................................... 65
16 References................................................................................................................ 66
1 Introducing and Supporting Key Skills in Undergraduate
Engineering Courses
Key skills can be, if properly adopted and applied, the help that is often needed by many of
today's students. That requires that we understand what is involved. This guide proposes to
contribute to that understanding from the point of view of an engineering educator.
The intention is to provide you with a quick route into a discussion of key skills. This is done
through a set of Review Questions for Departments and a range of Resources for
introducing and supporting Key Skills. A shortcut to the issues can be gained through the
use of Departmental Agenda Items that can be used as a way of discussing a departmental
approach to implementing key skills.
In April / May 2002 LTSN Engineering asked engineering academics across the UK about
key skills policy in their departments and universities. Responses were received from
approximately 20 different departments. The results revealed the following points:
· Fewer than half the respondents could identify a clear university policy for support or
development of key skills in their institutions.
· There is a lot of personal initiative driving and supporting key skills development at a
department level.
· Key skills is being interpreted very widely indeed, with many limited to communication skills,
particularly writing skills, in the early years of programmes. Some regard CAD ability as a key
skill.
· There is evidence of development of some key skills within particular "technical" modules.
Report writing figured fairly highly in this category. The methods of assessment and,
particularly, the reporting of the development of such skills was very varied.
· Assessment practice varied a lot from "assessment by attendance" to fully fledged
assessment across a number of key skills.
However with government agendas such as employability and the requirement for
universities to have Personal Development Profiles available to all students, key skills is
developing into a topic which should be integrated across whole engineering programmes.
Many of today’s teachers themselves in their younger days may not have been of the 'natural
learner' mould but just evolved to became such without much conscious thought. One aspect
of learning and teaching in higher education now that differentiates it from that of former
times is the effort applied to understanding the process itself. No longer can we be content to
define only the syllabus but ought also to consider how today's students learn and how we
should teach them.
As a means to encourage the development of key skills in UK HE engineering departments
the Engineering Subject Centre has produced this guide. This guide draws heavily on and
reproduces some sections of text, principally from:
· The Centre for Developing and Evaluating Lifelong Learning CDELL, School of
Education, The University of Nottingham.
Key Skills 1
The Engineering Subject Centre
2 A Rationale for Key Skills
This section offers a number of starting points for a discussion of three central issues.
· What are key skills?
· What function do key skills have in relation to learning?
· How do key skills relate to specialised areas of study?
2.1 Defining key skills
The following definition is given as a basis for discussion.
Key skills are a set of transferable skills, considered central to academic,
vocational and personal development.
Significant features of this definition are that key skills:
· are an identified set of skills which are common to all learning activity, and underpin
effective performance in a wide range of settings,
· should enable individuals to perform more effectively in new, unfamiliar settings or
contexts,
· are essential to personal development, and therefore to the individual's capacity to
manage his, or her own learning now and in the future.
2.2 Key skills and learning
The overarching key skill is that of being able to manage one's own learning. The acquisition
and exploitation of all other skills (whether or not these are seen to be key skills) will be
affected by the extent to which individuals are able to operate as autonomous learners. This
is learned expertise and generally involves the individual in:
· recognising his or her own achievement (usually in a specific area),
· reviewing and evaluating that achievement in relation to prior expectations that may be
imposed from outside or established by the individual,
· identifying future learning requirements,
· planning for future learning.
The skills involved in these four steps are to be found as components of very many learning
programmes as well as in processes of personal development planning.
Whether or not individuals have acquired these skills, and are capable of learning
management, may depend on the extent to which:
· they have been led to recognise and practice the processes involved, preferably in a
number of different contexts,
· the experience of learning development has been systematic and progressive.
Managing one's own learning is then likely to demand other key skills, whose exact definition
is a matter for debate. 1
1
Note that the current interest in key skills is strongly related to the wish to develop a basis for lifelong
learning, to which managing one's own learning is clearly directed. Consequently, there is a wish that
all education and training shall develop 'selfreliance, flexibility and breadth'. Key skills may be seen as
a means to both of these ends.
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2.3 Key skills and learning in specialist areas, such as engineering
In the light of the discussion above it can be argued that key skills are capable of being
described independently of any single specialism. They may be seen as an underpinning
aspect of learning and not as a component of specific programmes, which should be built on
them rather than providing the framework for them.
The arguments in favour of this view include:
· Key skills may be seen as a learning entitlement. If they represent a group of skills
without which effective learning cannot proceed, then they should be a part of all learning
programmes.
· Since it is impossible to anticipate individuals' future learning needs, it is a matter of
entitlement that they should develop as full a range of key skills as possible. But there are
difficulties with this viewpoint.
· Opportunities for developing key skills will vary considerably amongst specialist
programme areas, so that individuals will develop the skills at a variety of levels. For
example, communication skills may be readily developed in drama programmes, but
number skills less easily so.
· The motivation for developing a key skill may be low where the skill is not seen to be
directly relevant to a chosen area of specialisation. For example, numeracy skills may be
readily developed in an engineering programme, indeed are often taken for granted, but
skills development as an effective team member may need to be provided for in carefully
conceived settings. There is also the acknowledged difficulty of persuading engineering
students of the need to acquire or develop communication skills.
Four important issues to keep in mind:
· Beneficial changes to programmes can result from a fresh consideration of the
opportunities that the incorporation of a wider range of key skills could present.
· It is possible to coerce students into developing key skills by suggesting that their future
employability may depend on it. However, this may not be a sufficiently robust or
convincing rationale, particularly if an institution seeks to define learning entitlements
rather than depend entirely on the utility of the learning provision.
· Whilst it is never suggested that competence in key skills can be developed outside a
learning context, it is unlikely that anything approaching a full development can take
place in only one such context.
· An institutional agreement over the status and definition of key skills may produce some
uniformity of approach but it is probably inevitable that the development of key skills will
be contextualised in somewhat different ways in different specialist programmes.
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A Rationale For Key Skills: Review questions
You may find the following questions useful when reviewing key skills provision in your own
departments.
· Do you have a shared definition of key skills?
· Do you have an agreed list of key skills?
· Does everyone in the department subscribe to the full list of key skills?
· Do you agree that the overarching key skill is the ability to manage one's own learning?
· How do you assist students in recognising their own achievements?
· What systems are in place to enable students to review and evaluate their own
achievements?
· To what extent are key skills explicit in all departmental learning programmes?
· Are all key skills developed to the same level?
· How are key skills made relevant to programmes of study?
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3 Which Key Skills?
This section offers a discussion of three central issues.
· What classification of key skills might best suit your departmental programmes?
· Which key skills could be naturally developed through these programmes?
· To what extent could your programmes recognise and foster the development of other
key skills?
3.1 Key Skills
The term 'key skill' is being used widely as a synonym for 'core skill' or 'transferable skill'. It
refers to skills that are common to a wide range of programmes of all types. Key skills are
used as a means of enabling other objectives in a variety of contexts to be realised more
effectively, rather than as ends in themselves. We need to discuss:
· what are the key skills?
· how can they be classified?
· how do the skills differ for different clients or audiences?
This background paper starts to address these questions. You may want also to refer to
section 2 A Rationale for Key Skills and section 5 How can Key Skills be Specified?
3.2 What are the key skills?
Many skills models and lists have appeared since the 1980s. Common to the majority are
skills falling into a number of categories, such as:
· personal skills such as improving own learning, action planning,
· interpersonal skills such as working with others, group work, teamwork,
· communication, numeracy, skills in using information technology,
· problem solving, critical thinking, objective reasoning, reflection, lateral thinking.
Some associated attitudes and understandings are also widely accepted, including:
· a positive attitude to change,
· values and personal integrity,
· understanding the worlds of work, politics and society.
3.3 The QCA model of classification
A large amount of work was done in the 1980s and 90s, first by the National Council for
Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) in connection with vocational and occupational
programmes (mostly as NVQs), and subsequently by Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
(QCA), which subsumed the NCVQ, in connection with programmes of all types and at all
levels. This work continues, but is located within a list of six key skills of:
1. communication
2. application of number
3. information technology
4. working with others
5. improving own learning and performance
6. problem solving
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The QCA key skills are specified at five broad levels from level 1 (below GCSE) to level 5
(junior middle management / post degree). Level 4 corresponds most closely to
undergraduate level work, but student competencies in key skills may not necessarily match
their competencies as defined by A level or other subjectspecific qualifications.
The QCA key skills are specified in terms of competencies at each level, specifying the
evidence required for a student to demonstrate these competencies. So that key skills can be
developed in a wide range of contexts the competencies and evidence requirements are
expressed in generic rather than subjectspecific terms. However, it is not usually very
difficult to contextualise the requirements.
The QCA key skills specifications can be obtained from www.qca.org.uk/keyskills (24 March
2004)
The QCA key skills are used almost exclusively in most UK education settings prior to normal
university entry. In a number of universities the QCA key skills specifications have also been
used successfully as a basis for key skill development, and work continues on specifying the
skills at the higher levels relevant to higher education. Information on key skills up to level 4
is included in the QCA website.
There has been a tendency to emphasise the first three of these skills (communication,
application of number and information technology), partly because they are easy to assess,
and partly because they have been linked, at lower levels, to current preoccupations with
basic skills of literacy and numeracy. However, in higher education and employment, a wider
range of personal, interpersonal and problem solving skills has been seen as central.
In fact many would say that the skills of improving own learning (which encompasses a
positive attitude to change and to lifelong learning), communication, and working with others
(which includes group and teamwork skills) are the most fundamental key skills, and that the
others are secondary.
3.4 Other descriptions
Other classifications for key skills have been proposed. They tend to reflect the background
of their authors or the constituency of the organisations proposing them. There is more
discussion of the alternative descriptions of key skills in Murphy (2001).
3.5 Employers' views
In the Quality in Higher Education survey of 1992 (see Harvey and Knight, 1996), employers
were asked to say how they rated fifteen skills, from essential through to irrelevant. 77% saw
effective communication as essential, followed by teamwork (75%), ability to solve problems
(62%), analytic skills (59%), flexibility (58%) and in contrast numeracy (42%) and use of
information technology (20%). A later survey (in 1994) ranked the personal skills/attributes of
willingness to learn, commitment, reliability, selfmotivation and teamwork above
communication. It is worth noting that employers are not looking for 'trainees', but rather for
people equipped to learn and to deal with change and to contribute to change processes
within an organisation. They want the skills to be made more explicit. This is consistent with
the view that one stage of making skills transferable from context to context is for the learner
to become conscious of them.
3.6 Views from HE course tutors
In the 1990s tutors at many universities became aware that shortcomings in key skills were
hampering their students' capacities to benefit from their courses, as well as their subsequent
employment prospects. For instance, students' lack of appreciation of how to go about writing
essays, reports on an experiment, or a review of research, and ways in which these differed,
Key Skills
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needed to be addressed explicitly. This was particularly the case in engineering and science
programmes where many students, prior to university entry, had lost sight of the importance
or relevance of these skills. At a basic level, some students need support in improving
grammar or spelling, and some departments have made explicit provision for developing
these and other basic skills.
Students may also need help in developing study and personal skills, and skills in working
with others. In some cases the development of group work skills flows naturally from group
projects and assignments where group members define and allocate tasks, and bear joint
responsibility for successful outcomes.
Many students entering higher education encounter problems in meeting the demands of
universitylevel courses. For instance, activities such as reportwriting, essay writing, coping
with deadlines, using libraries effectively, and actionplanning can require support during the
first year of a degree course. Many universities have developed materials that can help
students develop the appropriate study skills, and have worked on programmes for the
development of higher level skills such as critical thinking, developing independence of
thought and problemsolving.
Because of these complex needs and demands some HE tutors now regard the six QCA key
skills as being too limited in their scope to cope with the HE environment.
3.7 Defining key skills in a particular degree programme
One widely accepted prerequisite of the transferability of a set of skills is the individual's
awareness of them. For instance, an awareness of how a report is presented in one field can
help in successfully presenting a report in another field. An awareness of the dynamics of
small groups, brought about following the review of one small group experience, can help in
other group sessions. Embedding the skill in an activity without explicitly recognising it can
minimise its transfer. And key skills can be transferred between different activities within a
course, too. The critical feature appears to be the degree to which the students (and tutor)
are conscious of the skill, can reflect on it and refer to it explicitly.
Thus, in planning or revising a particular course programme, the explicit recognition of key
skills can be increased and opportunities for their development made explicit. Further, a
widening of a programme from an emphasis on knowledge acquisition to one which
encompasses more of the key skills (for example using independent learning, student
directed group work, and developing critical thinking) may provide benefits both immediately
(in freeing up staff time, developing student maturity) and later (in fostering the development
of skills which will help the student in subsequent employment).
A first step might be to agree on a listing or classification of key skills that could refer to any
degreelevel programme. The next step might be to discuss with students and career staff
the key skills which a course already develops, those which are widely required of graduates
in subsequent employment, and look for opportunities of developing missing skills in the
revised programmes. It is likely that providing such opportunities will lead to a more effective
and satisfying degree programme, as well as improving the prospects of graduates.
It has to be acknowledged that the process of revising and implementing a programme to
incorporate more key skills empowerment is not likely to be easy and needs wisdom and
considerable staff development if it is to be achieved. This is particularly relevant in
engineering education, where technical knowledge acquisition is a traditional focus and
tutors may not be immediately comfortable with a refocusing on skills in which they
themselves may never have been tutored.
Key Skills 7
Which Key Skills?: Review questions
departments.
How do key skills differ from the specific skills required for a given degree programme?
Which of the QCA key skills are applicable to our courses?
How would we list key skills for our students?
What attitudes are desirable among our graduates?
How best can we foster these skills and attitudes?
To what extent do the key skills required by employers overlap with those we would like to
see developed?
What key skills do students entering our courses lack?
How best should these be developed?
What skills developed at university do new employees use in the workplace?
What implications are there for degree course planners?
In what ways can our courses be modified to better develop key skills?
In what ways can our courses benefit from this process?
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4 Programme Audits
This section incorporates a checklist of questions for the audit and review of existing key
skills developments and the planning and identifying of priority areas for action.
They can be used in departmental action planning for a systematic approach to key skills,
either independently or in relation to institutional or faculty key skills policies or initiatives.
Much of the focus is on learning strategies and the management of learning, rather than on
the issues of what specific key skills should be developed, or how those should be defined.
4.1 Using the question checklists
It is important that the checklists are used selectively and with appropriate regard for the
structures, approaches and circumstances of individual institutions. It is, for example,
appropriate to debate particular issues and conclude that "this doesn't apply to us" or to
insert additional points which reflect local priorities. It is clearly possible for a department to
develop further questions of its own, and to set target dates and responsibilities, thus
developing an action plan based on these questions.
Many of the issues contained in these review sheets are matters of general learning
management, and not specifically matters concerned with key skills. This reflects the view
that it is the learner's capacity to manage his or her own learning which is the essential skill,
within which all other skills (key or otherwise) are subsumed.
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Reviewing institutional strategies for key skills development
The following questions are framed in terms of institutional policies, but could equally be
asked of a department.
Does the university have a policy on key skills?
Does this cover all programmes and all students?
Does a wholeinstitution key skills operational plan enable action to be taken, and to identify
when and by whom?
Has existing key skills work by staff and students been audited?
Are key skills developments linked to prior learning programmes and graduates' future
requirements?
Are you aware of any work your careers service has done in this area?
Are any key skills requirements imposed by quality assurance procedures?
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Reviewing institutional management
Has a manager or group been appointed to be responsible for overall key skills
development?
Has awarenessraising staff development on key skills been provided?
Have you made use of existing staff experience and expertise to aid development work?
To what extent are teams developing key skills within and across subject areas?
Has time been made available for staff to meet?
Are review/tutorial periods provided for all students?
Is a range of resources/learning materials/environments available for all students?
Are action planning and recording achievement provided through a single coherent system,
understood by staff and students?
To what extent are key skills implementation and achievement evaluated?
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Reviewing current programme provision
Do all programme team members meet regularly?
Are definitions of key skills being used and understood by everyone in the team?
Are teaching and learning strategies and resources needed to develop key skills
competencies planned by the whole team?
To what extent are all aspects of the learning programme explored in relation to key skills
development?
To what extent are assessment and recording procedures for all key skills achievements
planned and understood by the whole team?
Has an audit of where key skills already exist, been carried out by staff (and students)?
To what extent are precise definitions of key skills being used in carrying out the audit?
Are audit results used to plan key skills developments?
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Reviewing student participation and action planning
To what extent are students' previous key skills achievements acknowledged?
Is an induction programme used to introduce key skills?
To what extent are individual action plans or learning agreements used which incorporate
key skills targets, learning strategies and resources?
Are methods by which key skill competencies may be developed discussed with students?
Are the criteria by which students' performances in key skills will be assessed and recorded
explained to them?
Is the action plan linked to a continuous system for recording achievement, incorporating key
skills?
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Reviewing how learners may be encouraged to value key skills
Is the value of key skills in their learning programmes discussed with students?
Can students identify where they can develop and use key skills?
Are students persuaded of the value of key skills for career development?
To what extent are future requirements in relation to key skills discussed with students?
Reviewing the provision of learning opportunities
To what extent is student activity designed and delivered as part of the whole programme?
Is a range of opportunities used for students to develop key skills, such as:
· workbased assignments
· group work
· simulations
· lectures
· supported selfstudy
· practical activities?
Are opportunities provided for students to develop process skills, such as:
· managing time
· working with others
· writing and speaking?
To what extent are students given help and support appropriate to their learning activities?
Do staff and students agree on the expected outcomes before undertaking learning
activities?
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Reviewing the learning environments
Is a range of learning environments used to develop key skills?
Are staff able to provide appropriate and adequate learning support in all environments?
Are learners and teaching staff trained to use different learning environments effectively?
Reviewing student involvement in the assessment and review process
To what extent are performance criteria for key skills assessment made explicit to learners?
Is a variety of key skill performance evidence used, such as:
· oral work
· observation of performance
· witness material
· written outcomes
· finished products?
To what extent is the use of self, peer and group assessment encouraged?
To what extent are students helped to identify and use key skills in other contexts?
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Structuring recording and reviewing time
To what extent are students given some responsibility for the management of the review
process?
Are specified periods of time for regular recording and reviewing of achievement (including
key skills) built into the programme(s)?
Are review periods structured around the systematic evaluation of achievement in relation to
targets?
An integrated system of recording and reviewing of individual progress
Is the process part of a whole system of action planning within the department or institution?
To what extent do all teaching staff have an involvement in, and understanding of, the
recording and reviewing process?
Is progress and achievement information fed back to other teaching colleagues for future
action and progression?
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5 How Can Key Skills Be Specified?
This section offers a number of starting points for those concerned with defining the scope
and nature of a key skill. The paper is in four sections:
· creating a rough framework for the skill,
· deciding on a specification structure,
· thinking about assessment,
· testing and evaluating the specification.
5.1 Making decisions about key skills
The process of making decisions about key skills might happen in several stages.
· A commitment in principle to adopting key skills as underpinning aspects of learning.
· An identification of particular named skills as important.
· A discussion of the scope of these skills.
At this point there is a need to arrive at some sort of specification for a particular skill. This
section goes through the steps in arriving at a key skill specification. It takes, as examples,
the skills of communication and working with others, both of which are likely to feature in any
discussion of key skills in any context.
The steps to consider are:
· creating a rough framework for each required skill: deciding on the principal features of
the skill without, at this stage creating a specification,
· deciding on a specification structure: arriving at a structure which will describe the
required skills sufficiently and precisely,
· thinking about assessment: tailoring the specification in a way which enables
assessments of competence to be made,
· testing and evaluating the specification: ensuring that what has been produced is
workable in all the contexts in which it is to be used.
5.2 Creating a rough framework for the skill
It is very likely that there will be a variety of perceptions of the scope of a chosen skill. Whilst
it is helpful to say that skills such as communication and working with others are important,
there is a need to go beyond these titles to an agreed framework for each selected skill. At
first this will be a fairly rough framework, but getting agreement on it is an essential first step.
Who is going to make decisions about the scope of this key skill?
· It is likely to be the immediate user who will do the bulk of the work. If the skill is to be
defined only for use in a single department, or in relation to a single programme, then those
in the programme will make the decisions.
· If the skill crosses programme or departmental boundaries then a wider group of people will
need to be involved. This may make the task more difficult but experience suggests that the
debates involved are interesting and rewarding.
Is the specification of the skill likely to be affected by the composition of the planning
(or decision making) group?
· A skill for use in relation to a single programme or group of programmes can be specified in
a way which relates exactly to the content of the programme(s). The skill may still bear a
close resemblance to the same skill specified for use in another context, but which could not
make the transition from one context to another without adaptation. It will generally be easier
to specify a skill if group members share a common background and are able to relate the
skill to this.
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· A skill for use across programmes (or perhaps across an institution) must be specified in a
way which enables contextualisation to be done at programme level, by users. This is a more
demanding task since aspects of the skill must be defined in relation to nonspecific
activities, in a way which enables all users to relate to the skill equally easily, and with
parallel interpretations. A group doing this will find the task more demanding.
Should each planning group work in isolation?
It is clearly not very efficient if a number of separate planning groups are each attempting to
set a rough framework for a skill such as communication; there is obviously a lot of common
ground amongst the ways in which people communicate, whether it's in engineering, history,
dentistry or environmental science and any key skill specification should recognise this.
The arguments for working across departments are quite strong.
· The job is done once; it will be more difficult to do but, if done well, the result is much more
flexible and can be applied in a number of contexts.
· It is quite difficult to envisage the concept of a key skill which is defined separately in a
number of different places; this is somewhat at odds with the idea of an underpinning and
transferable skill.
It is easier to envisage a broad specification which is then contextualised in many places.
There are also some external views to be taken into account: those working on key skills in
HE are likely to want to take notice of:
· what's happening in other HE institutions,
· the views of employers, professional institutions and other external bodies.
You will also need to decide:
· on the skills which are to be worked on,
· on the applicability of the specification: who needs to be involved in working on it?
· what external bodies and individuals need to be consulted.
Getting started
There is no point in reinventing the wheel: the best source of ideas is likely to come from
work done by others in a similar situation. There are many frameworks (though some are
much less useful than others), and most of them are referred to in this guide. Before starting
work on another key skill specification it is recommended that you collect and study a
selection of what others have done. Even if you are working on a departmental basis you
should not restrict your search to work in other similar departments.
Example 1: a rough structure for communication
Communication Reading will need to involve:
It is suggested that communication will have · selecting suitable materials,
three components, the scope of each of which · reading the materials and extracting and
is indicated by the paragraphs on the right. classifying appropriate information,
· selecting appropriate images,
· making suitable notes or summaries.
Speaking will be in the context of
presentation and discussion. It will involve:
· making a presentation to an audience of
peers,
· being able to discuss technical issues,
· being able to explain concepts and ideas,
· the use of images to illustrate the spoken
word,
Key Skills
18
· listening to others and reacting to what
they say.
Writing will involve
· being able to write documents of various
types, in appropriate styles,
· using information extracted from other
sources,
· presenting clear arguments in written
form, supported by images where
necessary,
· using suitable language and acceptable
grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Example 2: a rough structure for working with others
Working with others 1 In consultation, the group:
Working with others is seen here as a process, · establishes the targets to be met jointly,
having three interdependent stages. It is here and ensures that everyone understands
constructed around an information/data these,
collection type of task, and might be formulated
differently if, for example, it were to be
· decides what has to be done in order to
concerned with an experimental or construction meet those targets (sets an action plan),
project. · agrees how the work is to be divided,
allocates responsibilities and deadlines,
and agrees working methods,
· ensures the involvement of all group
members.
2 Group members:
· take action appropriate to their
responsibilities, collect information, record
etc, as appropriate
· consult and liase with other group
members, as required
· check on progress and get feedback from
others.
3 The group, working together
· pools outcomes and organises
information gained
· reviews progress against the action plan
· evaluates the outcomes and takes action
to repair deficiencies.
5.3 Deciding on a specification structure
Your rough framework is likely to have identified aspects of the key skill. For example:
In communication many specifications The skill of working with others, which
identify aspects of: might include aspects of:
· selecting and reading source materials of · planning joint activities and setting
several kinds; making notes or summaries, targets; allocating tasks amongst group
· writing various kinds of documents, members,
· speaking about specialist or non · carrying out the activities and monitoring
Key Skills 19
specialist topics, to various audiences. individual contributions,
· jointly evaluating outcomes.
There is a fundamental difference between these two outlines. In the first example, the three
aspects are different sorts of communication; they have things in common, but they can be
considered separately and may be regarded as subskills. For example, removing the sub
skill of speaking will not materially affect the subskill of writing (though it might make the
whole communication skill look very onesided).
On the other hand, the aspects specified for working with others are part of a process, and
removing one aspect undermines the process as a whole.
It is likely that you will encounter specifications of both of these types and some that are
hybrids of the two. Your decision at this stage is to decide how to structure the aspects of the
key skill which you are working on. Sometimes there is little real choice; although it is
possible to structure communication as a process, few people have done it because it
appears to become clumsy, reflecting the multifaceted nature of communication. What can
be done is to create a process within each aspect of communication so that, for example
The aspect of writing within communication consists of a number of steps:
· selecting information to be presented,
· using a suitable format,
· organising material coherently and in an appropriate style,
· ensuring the written material is technically acceptable.
In working with others, on the other hand, it is very difficult to pick the process apart,
although aspects of this skill (such as evaluating outcomes) are important skills in their own
right, and may appear elsewhere in a suite of key skills specifications.
The implication of this discussion is that there are likely to be three tiers to any specification
of a key skill. There could be more, but that would make the whole thing unduly complex. In
some cases two tiers is sufficient. Diagram 1 illustrates this.
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20
THE SKILL
ASPECTS OF THE SKILL (or SUBSKILLS)
These may be independent or linked in a process
STEPS
These are subelements of the aspect of the skill; they may form a process
Diagram 1
A specification of this kind may be written so that the
steps make explicit reference to a particular programme SCOPE
or subject. It may, for example, be concerned with The range of situations
writing certain sorts of documents, such as reports of to which the step is
experimental work, where the presentation and style applicable; described
may be specified. More often, generically
the steps are stated more generally, and will need to
apply to a wide range of written materials or other
applications of this part of the key skill. The EXAMPLES
specification will therefore need some mechanism Some illustrative examples
whereby either: of applications of the step
· the scope of the applicability of the steps can be
explained,
· or examples of the applicability of the step are SKILLS OR KNOWLEDGE
given, Particular items needed in order
or specific aspects of skill and knowledge within a to be able to undertake the step
step are described
Often, some combination of these three may be needed, most probably by embedding some
examples in statements of scope or statements of skill and knowledge. The diagram is
therefore modified to allow the incorporation of some statements of scope, examples and
aspects of skills or knowledge.
5.4 Thinking about level
It is quite probable that the skills expected of students at the end of their university careers
will be higher than the skills expected at the outset; in other words, their competencies will
develop over the course of their higher education programme. In fact, this may be a
deliberate intention, with planned learning in key skills, perhaps integrated into the contexts
of various aspects of their course.
It may be appropriate simply to specify the expected outcome at the end of the programme.
However, it is unlikely that all students will demonstrate the same degree of competence in
any one of a set of skills; there will be a range of attainments, with the possibility of reporting
these on a skill by skill basis for each student. If this is to be done you will need to specify the
levels of competence involved.
Some levels already exist, and it will be important to study how these have been constructed.
For example, students entering higher education are expected to be competent at level 3 in
Key Skills 21
the key skills of communication, application of number and information technology, as
specified by QCA.
The scale of levels as defined by QCA, are used as a basis for establishing qualification
benchmarks, into which key skills qualifications are fitted. Whilst the QCA key skills
specifications are not the only ones in use, the levels benchmarks are so widely understood
that it may create unnecessary complications to deviate from them.
You may therefore attempt to define key skills appropriate to your needs, but locate the
standards within the QCA levels framework. In that case you may wish to:
· be clear about your requirements for level 3 (the entry level),
· state your requirements for course outcomes (which will probably be close to those of level
4 in the QCA system),
· state a higher professional requirement for those students who are competent beyond your
course outcome requirement (which are likely to equate to QCA level 5).
The easiest way to be clear about these levels for key skills is to consult the current QCA key
skills specifications for levels 15. See www.qca.org.uk
5.5 Thinking about assessment
An intention to assess whether students have a competence in a key skill affects the way in
which the skill is specified. Not only is it necessary to be clear what aspects of the skill are
relevant, it is also essential to write the specification in a way which:
· makes it clear to tutors and students what aspects of the competence are to be developed,
· enables appropriate assessment decisions to be made.
Thus, for example, in working with others, if students are required to:
‘agree working arrangements with others’. It needs to be agreed that this means that
students should:
· identify and express their own preferences,
· suggest working arrangements,
· listen and respond to the suggestions of others, leading to an agreed arrangement.
It is important not to take the specifications to absurd lengths. Whilst it is necessary to
specify, for example, what sorts of written documents should be produced as evidence of
competence, it is rarely necessary to describe these in minute detail. Often, where there
needs to be clarification, it is better to do this through examples rather than ever more detail
in a specification.
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22
Why bother with assessment?
If key skills are important aspects of an individual's capacity to manage his or her own
learning (that is, to be able to learn and work autonomously) then you need to agree that
they have been developed to a sufficient level. This might be done wholly within the context
of a particular programme or separately, through a range of contexts. The skills are very
unlikely to be assessed without reference to some context or another.
Having specified a key skill, it might then be absorbed into a programme and assessed
entirely within the programme. Different departments in a university may each absorb the
same skill and assess competence in that skill in separate, parallel contexts. However, even
when this happens the specification for that skill must be written in a way that enables
broadly the same judgements to be made in all contexts.
There is a more extended discussion of assessing key skills in section 12 Assessment and
Accreditation.
5.6 Outcome statements
In order to meet the requirements for assessment the key skill specifications need to be
written in the form of outcome statements. These will be criteria by which judgements are
made about competence. In any piece of evidence presented by a student it is possible that
several criteria may be satisfied. Indeed, you will want to encourage students to demonstrate
competence through evidence which is appropriate and realistic in the context of their
programmes, not by undertaking a series of tasks which are undertaken quite separately
from that context.
The use of outcome statements can be illustrated by a portion of a communication key skill
specification, dealing with reading.
There are three criteria in this part of the specification.
When reading and responding to written materials you must:
· select and read appropriate materials for a purpose, and review this process,
· extract and collate the necessary information from text and images,
· summarise coherently the information obtained from different sources.
These are all outcome statements: they express what a student has to do, and therefore
what attributes any evidence of competence in this area must have. It will clearly be
necessary to have some help in using these criteria, however. In this specification this has
been done by describing what is meant by the active parts of each criterion; these are:
select and read, review this process, extract, collate and summarise.
This has been done by seeking to explain what skills and knowledge are involved in these
processes.
An earlier strategy which sought to define what was meant by terms such as
appropriate materials, necessary information, text and images and different sources
tended to generate long lists of acceptable categories, which became clumsy and difficult to
use.
5.7 Testing and evaluating a specification
The suitability of a specification is likely to be established at a number of key points. It is
desirable that a trial period is set for the specification (perhaps a year), at the end of which
there will be a systematic review of the feedback obtained.
Key Skills 23
Do users understand the specification?
The specification will be put into operation by teaching staff (perhaps in various departments)
and by their students. A first and crucial test of what has been written is whether these
people find the specification clear and relevant to what they are doing. Users should be able
to comment systematically, using a report sheet. Opportunities for groups of users to discuss
the specification will often yield valuable overviews.
Is the specification relevant to all contexts?
It is particularly important to ensure that the specification is equally relevant in all of the
contexts in which it is used. This may be evaluated using small groups of users (including
students), drawn across departments using the specification, inviting them to explore their
interpretations. It will be important to discuss the difference between interpretations that are
significant and those that are not relevant, bearing in mind that key skills are intended to
operate across contexts and to be transferable.
Can the specification be used for making assessments?
This is by far the most demanding test of a specification. The extent to which aspects of the
key skill are equally appropriate across contexts, are equally understood by those working in
different contexts, and are being interpreted similarly, will be made very clear in agreement
trials. In these trials the basis for assessment decisions is discussed, using students'
performance evidence that has been submitted in relation to a particular specification
requirement.
Although agreement trials are a valuable (even essential) aspect of professional
development in assessment, they also provide strong evidence about the basis for
assessment decisions, and are a powerful evaluation tool. The feasibility of using a particular
specification (and, particularly, the extent to which it does not provide an adequate basis for
assessment) is very searchingly tested in an agreement trial, the outcomes of which need to
be recorded very carefully.
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24
6 Managing Key Skills
This section offers a number of starting points for a discussion of three approaches to
initiating and supporting key skills work. They are:
· top down vs bottom up approaches,
· permeating vs freestanding,
· offtheshelf vs a customised product.
6.1 Top down vs bottom up
Although you may not have the option of choosing whether key skills development is initiated
by others or wholly under your own control, managing the implementation of key skills is of
crucial importance.
Top down
If the initiative is driven from the 'top' down it is likely to:
· have immediate status,
· be supported with resources,
· become widely supported initially and attract 'symbolic agreement' about its worth.
But this approach, driven by a desire for uniformity and universitywide standardised
approaches can, in the end:
· leave many uncommitted,
· lead to friction between departments.
Bottom up
Here the drive comes from committed individuals and groups set on effecting improvements
in their own departments. Some would argue that this:
· leads to high levels of 'ownership' and commitment,
· enables individuals to exert a strong influence over colleagues.
But, problems can arise from this approach unless it is accompanied by careful
management. There may be a tendency for innovation to remain within a small group of
'believers' rather than spread across the department. Worse still, allowing developments to
take place piece by piece tends to make it more difficult to draw the initiatives together into a
cohesive whole. And too much diversity can have serious implications for the quality of
provision for students.
It may be the case that at different stages of development it may be necessary to drive
change through from both directions the timing of the changes will be the crucial factor.
Bottom up approaches may well benefit later from effective management support, while top
down approaches can achieve an initial overall level of activity which needs to be sustained
by groups of committed practitioners. This is particularly true if key skills are to be developed
on a whole institution basis.
6.2 Integrated vs freestanding
An early decision needs to be made about whether key skills should be integrated into
programmes or be presented in standalone courses or modules. Standalone provision has
the advantages of relatively low development costs and minimum disruption to existing
programmes. Its disadvantages are that students may perceive key skills as marginal to their
needs, and many teaching staff may have no involvement in the development.
The effectiveness of integrated approaches to key skills development and freestanding
provision remains unresolved. As Allen (1992) points out having observed a wide range of
Key Skills 25
approaches, from freestanding to integrated, "although the latter may seem to be the most
effective, this can only be achieved if the majority of staff are themselves skilled and
committed to such an approach". He goes on to point out that, in the initial stages of
development a "freestanding approach may be a way of piloting the work and using limited
resources within a department".
Whichever approach is used, the key lies in engaging students in the process. If they are to
take the changes seriously they need to believe that key skills are an essential and relevant
part of their programmes and will improve their performance. To achieve this, the skills
should be assessed and accredited.
6.3 Off the shelf vs a customised product
There are now so many overlapping models for key skills being put forward by such a wide
range of institutions that it may appear there is little need for anyone to develop a new model.
To create your own set of key skills would appear to be a case of reinventing the wheel, and
it may seem sensible to opt for an "off the shelf" model. Furthermore, the need to ensure that
key skills work does not differ too much from what students may already have experienced
previously in school, college or work, or are likely to experience later, will limit scope for
experimentation. The most profitable path would appear to be to adapt existing models to
suit your own needs and the demands of your subject area or discipline.
Factors to consider include:
· your perceptions of your students’ key skill needs in relation to future employment or
academic activity,
· your understanding of the key skill competencies of students entering the department,
· whether the need is for individual support or for broadbased provision for all students,
· the department’s readiness to reexamine its programmes and to identify areas where key
skill development should be made explicit,
· how far your teaching staff feel competent to support students’ key skill development, and
whether they would be willing to train themselves to do this,
· the priority that you attach to key skill developments in relation to other demands on staff
time,
· whether there are existing initiatives that will meet your needs, perhaps with a little
adaptation,
· how far you wish to develop programmes that identifiably belong to your department, and
wish to draw attention to key skill competencies in your graduates.
If you decide to move ahead with key skills development staff will need to:
· assimilate the language of key skills into their existing professional vocabulary,
· apply the new language and knowledge to their courses,
· develop strategies for supporting students in developing key skills,
· develop strategies and expertise in key skills assessment,
· be contextualised in somewhat different ways in different specialist programmes.
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26
Managing Key Skills: Review questions
departments.
Will you use a universitywide or a smallscale approach?
Who will manage the initiative?
How will you involve all relevant staff so that they feel a sense of ownership of the scheme?
What inservice training needs are there?
How will dissemination of good practice be managed?
Will key skills be integrated within degrees and other programmes, or be treated as stand
alone modules?
What resources are available to support either approach?
How will key skills be assessed, and by whom?
How will key skills be accredited, and by whom?
Will you look elsewhere for ideas and support materials?
Are there models for introducing and supporting key skills which can be adapted to your
needs?
Who will investigate different key skills models?
Key Skills 27
7 Motivating And Supporting Staff
Winning over staff and getting them actively involved is probably the single biggest
problem facing anyone trying to introduce key skills into departmental programmes.
Although those involved in staff development and organisational change within your own
institution will be able to provide general advice, there are certain issues which will have to
be taken on board. This section offers a number of starting points for a discussion of ways in
which teaching staff can be encouraged to introduce key skills work into their courses.
· What are the staff concerns likely to be?
· How can the idea of key skills be sold to staff?
· How can a sense of ownership be engendered?
· Who do staff learn from?
7.1 Staff concerns over key skills
It’s not unusual for departmental staff to have a wide range of views concerning the value of
key skills in relation to the needs of the discipline and nature of the programmes provided.
The discussion of the issues needs to be in the open, since the introduction of key skills is
unlikely to succeed (and be a worthwhile use of resources) if it depends on only the efforts
and enthusiasm of a small minority.
Concerns about the value of introducing key skills are likely to include some combination of:
· ideological concerns based on a dislike of the whole idea of key skills,
· concerns that key skills are not an appropriate focus because staff believe that a mastery of
technical subject matter is the single most important concern of their students,
· practical concerns that the workload involved in developing key skills is large in relation to
the benefits that would accrue,
· concerns about the resources available or the degree of support that will be made available
for the development,
· personal concerns that aspects of the proposed key skills are beyond the individual’s
expertise.
Whilst it is unlikely that everyone will be equally committed to key skills, a failure to address
any of these concerns risks a patchy approach to their incorporation into departmental
programmes, and mixed messages being given to students. It will generally be better to take
some time over debating these concerns.
7.2 Selling the idea of key skills
It will be necessary to prepare a cohesive and persuasive case for key skills in order to
convince colleagues of their merits. This may well involve discussion of wider issues such as
the nature of the department’s programmes, professional demands within the sector, and the
employability of departmental graduates. Work on key skills (at either institutional or
department level) has seldom been an isolated undertaking, and has usually been prompted
by one or more of the following requirements:
· the need to respond to subject benchmarking,
· the need for programme restructuring, including modularisation,
· moves to outcomesbased programmes and new approaches to assessment,
· skills audits and discussions about competencebased learning,
· wider discussions about the vocational relevance of programmes and graduate
employability.
It is not difficult to see key skills as one aspect of such wider debates. However, the
problems that some teaching staff have with the concept of key skills (and particularly the
QCA competencebased model) are often based on a set of professional beliefs that:
Key Skills
28
· they are inappropriate in the context of the academic content of their course,
· they do not sit well within the overall departmental programme structure,
· they are incompatible with the overall purpose of higher education,
· vocational issues should not impinge on academic practice,
· future employment issues are not the concern of universities.
All of these points will need to be addressed if tutors are to be convinced of the worth of key
skills. Although most engineering department staff should not be too hard to convince on
vocational or employability grounds, they may be more difficult to convince that a key skills
permeation of what they teach is a sound means to benefit their students. There may be a
concern that it will, somehow, spoil or pollute or demean the integrity of their subject. Such
prejudice is often based on a lack of knowledge of key skills or, worse still, on second or third
hand knowledge of their imposed application in a prescriptive way elsewhere.
7.3 Volunteers and conscripts developing ownership
Those involved in implementing key skills will be a mix of enthusiastic volunteers and rather
less enthusiastic conscripts. In order to maintain interest and involvement, however, it will be
necessary to build up a sense of ownership of the initiative amongst the team. This will go
beyond symbolic agreement with the aims of the project to real engagement with its values
and ethos.
Creating a sense of ownership is difficult especially at a time when there is a good deal of
'imposed' change in higher education, more than a little 'innovation fatigue', and frequent
conflicts between various initiatives. Three key concerns will need to be addressed and
negotiation started with tutors if they are to develop a commitment to key skills. These are:
· meeting or minimising the costs of involvement in the initiative,
· identifying a role that they can play in deciding the overall direction of the work,
· giving them shares in deciding how any benefits or outcomes arising from the initiative will
be distributed.
In their enthusiasm for an initiative, those managing it often forget the costs to other staff in
terms of the additional workloads and the time lost to other activities. When designing the
strategy for key skills development it is important to build these costs in at the outset,
negotiate their level, and ensure that there is an equitable distribution amongst the
department. It is all too easy to create anxiety by not stipulating time commitments required,
and to create resentment by underestimating them. Similarly, support and administrative
support staff will be affected and their involvement needs to be costed.
In the course of discussing opportunity costs, staff will need:
· assurance that their workloads have been taken into account,
· assurance that tradeoffs will be made so that their overall workloads don't increase,
· to be convinced that the inclusion of key skills will enhance and improve the performance of
their students,
· to be persuaded that a focus on key skills can benefit the quality of their teaching,
· assurance that opportunities will be found for them to participate in the decision making
processes and assessment of the developments.
7.4 Who do staff learn best from?
There is still a long established culture in higher education which values research more
highly than teaching, and many university staff are hired for reasons other than their teaching
abilities. Asking staff to examine their teaching in terms of generic, transferable skills rather
than as subject specialists will often require them to step outside the boundaries of their
expertise into relatively unknown territory. This shift can cause acute anxiety amongst some
teaching staff.
Key Skills 29
These anxieties may show themselves in negative and even quite aggressive behaviour.
Lecturers may feel threatened (sometimes with some justification) by what they see as the
jargon ridden, overly technical, and mechanistic language of key skills. There may also be
some resentment that this has nothing to do with what they were employed to do. In such
situations it is essential that the right kind of support and approaches are available. A few
obvious principles apply, when drawing up strategies for engaging staff in key skills work.
· Academic staff learn best from peers (preferably in their own field).
· Staff are more willing to be trained by peers who have direct experience of such work.
· Staff are less likely to respond to specialist support staff even though they may possess the
necessary skills and understanding.
A useful strategy may be to appoint enthusiastic tutors from within the institution and, if
possible, from within the department to act as 'internal consultants'. In this way key skills
work can be permeated throughout the university providing, of course, that these individuals
also receive support and resources in order to carry out the role.
Alternatively, active engagement with similar departments in other institutions, possibly
networking through the Engineering Subject Centre, can resolve concerns more easily than
“going it alone”. Surprising amounts of advice, materials and support are available off the
shelf, and are often tailored to the needs of individual subjects. It will generally be far easier
to adapt existing approaches than to start from scratch, though this need not limit a
department’s capacity, over a period of time, to develop approaches that suit its own
situation or requirements.
Support materials
The tendency in most key skills initiatives has been to produce support materials for
students rather than for staff.
If materials are produced to assist teaching staff and are designed to help them manage and
record the process of implementing and using key skills, the initiative is likely to have a wider
take up. These need not be very elaborate in the first instance; their value lies in supporting
coherent approaches to the same skills in different parts of the teaching programme.
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30
Motivating And Supporting Staff: Review questions
departments.
Have you identified likely key skills "enthusiasts" on the staff?
Where are you most likely to encounter resistance to key skills how will you tackle this?
How will you counter the criticisms that key skills are not our business and detract from our
primary academic function?
What is the anticipated cost of the key skills initiative? Should it be phased?
How will these costs be met?
How will you ensure that staff achieve a sense of "ownership" of the initiative?
What would you list as the benefits of key skills for students and for staff?
How will staff workloads be safeguarded?
How will you ensure that all departmental members are involved in the initiative?
How will you identify suitable staff to act as internal "consultants" for key skills work?
Who will these be?
What support will you make available for them?
What materials will be needed to support staff development needs?
To what extent have you considered the needs of support staff in terms of time, resources
and their training and support needs?
Key Skills 31
8 Teaching And Learning Key Skills
Not all teaching leads to learning. This section raises a number of questions about effective
learning, in the context of the debate about key skills.
· Different teaching and learning styles are necessary to promote key skills
· Styles that might be adopted
· Considering the quality and nature of the learning environment.
The section also raises issues relating to the motivation of students (see also ‘Motivating
Students’) and the assessment process (see also ‘Assessment and Accreditation’).
8.1 Why different teaching and learning styles are needed
"University teaching needs to move from a model of teaching knowledge to one of enabling
learning" Skills for Graduates in the 21st Century, 1996 (A Report from the Association of
Graduate Recruiters)
The Report goes on to suggest that in order to meet the challenges of employment in the 21 st
century, graduates will need to be able to manage their relationship with work and with
learning more effectively. To do so, they will need to become more selfreliant, developing
"skills such as negotiating, action planning and networking, added to qualities like self
awareness and confidence".
The development of these skills and qualities will not only require them to be given more
prominence within the HE curriculum, it will also demand more participative approaches to
teaching and learning by both staff and students alike. The tutor's task is therefore to provide
a range of different learning contexts and activities which encourage the right sorts of skills
and qualities and from which evidence of key skill achievement can be derived.
8.2 What different teaching and learning styles are there?
Whilst traditional didactic teaching may still have some place in higher education, strategies
which encourage a more participative approach might include the following.
workbased activities group work supported selfdirected study

practical work role play case studies
presentations learning contracts interviews
action planning negotiation exercises decisionmaking exercises
observation exercises research exercises skill transfer exercises
simulations problemsolving exercises
ITbased activities time management exercises
What characterises these strategies is that as well as being learning activities, they also
create assessment opportunities, thereby uniting the assessment process with normal,
natural learning. This in turn satisfies the principle put forward in section 12 Assessment
and Accreditation, that a primary purpose of assessment is to generate evidence of
achievement which can be used by tutor and student together to plan future individual
learning (remedial or developmental). This formative assessment is a powerful tool for
enabling students to understand their own learning and make judgements about their
programmes and achievements. If students are shown how to become reflective learners
early on in their undergraduate programmes this will improve the quality of their work and
make teaching much more effective. Time and resources spent on induction and tutorial
support early in degree programmes will be time well spent.
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32
8.3 Quality of the learning environment
Although adjusting teaching styles to include some of the approaches listed above will help
to promote more selfreliance among students, that would merely be a superficial solution. A
far more effective strategy would be to undertake a fundamental review of the whole learning
environment within which students operate, in order to ensure that:
· learning outcomes, including key skills, and assessment requirements are clearly specified,
· learning outcomes are fully understood by the students, who can also have a say in what
and how they learn,
· the teaching and learning approaches are relevant to the outcomes and interesting to the
students,
· the assessment techniques reflect the nature of the learning process,
· there is regular dialogue between tutor and student,
· students are encouraged to become reflective learners and to make judgements about the
quality of their work.
If the suggested teaching styles are then adopted within an environment that meets these
criteria, they will be even more conducive to effective learning and to the development of the
key skills. At the same time, encouraging students to compile evidence of their progress and
achievement in a portfolio, which is managed by them within clear guidelines and with tutor
support, can further assist them to become reflective learners. This is a crucial part of the key
skill of Improving Own Learning (see section 2 A Rationale for Key Skills).
Involving employers in the delivery of the HE curriculum, perhaps through involvement in
seminars and workshops, and by inviting alumni to address students from time to time, will
also help to provide students with a better insight into the skills they will need to function
effectively within the world of work. This in turn should sharpen departments’ perceptions of
the skills that should be incorporated into courses.
Key Skills 33
Teaching And Learning Key Skills: Review questions
departments.
What are the main teaching and learning styles currently used within the department?
To what extent are methods by which key skills are taught/learned discussed with the
student?
To what extent are key skills an acknowledged part of every department's teaching strategy?
Are the teaching styles appropriate to the development of key skills? What changes of
method may be required?
To what extent are key skills an acknowledged part of every department's assessment
arrangements?
To what extent are key skills explicit within every programme of study?
Is the relationship between key skills work and the student's overall programme of study
clear?
Are criteria by which the student's performance in key skills assessed and recorded
explained to her/him?
To what extent are students encouraged to take control of their own learning?
Has time and support been set aside for the student to reflect on her/his own learning?
What staff development may be required if changes to teaching methods are to be
implemented?
What are the resource/time implications?
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34
9 Motivating Students
This section offers a number of starting points for a discussion of four issues:
· What can be done to improve students' understanding of key skills?
· How can students be encouraged to value key skills?
· What part should students play in the decision to include key skills within their programme
of study?
· What degree of control or responsibility should students have over the assessment,
recording and tracking of key skills?
9.1 What motivates a student to learn?
Higher education is not compulsory. The student chooses to be in higher education and
arrives at university with certain expectations. It would be impossible to identify the multitude
of reasons that motivate individuals to study in higher education, but most lists would
probably include
· an interest in studying a particular subject or programme
· the desire to obtain a higher qualification,
· the possibility of improved employment prospects,
· the opportunity to meet likeminded people,
· the opportunity to develop further knowledge and skills,
· parental, peer and social pressures.
For the vast majority of students (who will not remain in higher education after graduating)
the prime motivating force is the drive to obtain a good degree and thus increase their
prospects for employment. Anything that appears to deflect them from this objective is likely
to be considered a distraction and can, therefore, be demotivating. Unless key skills are
clearly related to the main programme of study, and are seen to be relevant to it, key skills
can easily fall into this category. Far from enhancing and enriching the student's experience,
they become an irritant or a chore, and something that the student would prefer not to do. At
that point, any value that key skills may have (see section 2 A Rationale for Key Skills) will
disappear.
Assuming that the development and acquisition of key skills is seen by the department to be
desirable, the central issue here is concerned with improving students' understanding of key
skills so that they recognise and value them. Winning the hearts, minds and involvement
of students will be a major consideration, and any discussions of key skills will need
to remain firmly focused on this.
9.2 Valuing key skills
Feedback from HE institutions involved in key skills development work in the late 1990s
suggested that key skills are likely to be valued where:
· they form an integral part of the student's main programme of study so that they are seen to
be in the mainstream of the discipline,
· previous key skills achievements are taken into account, whether or not these have formed
part of a qualification,
· they are contextualised by being made explicit within the learning outcomes of the
programme or individual modules,
· time and support are provided for students to reflect on their achievements and thus
develop
their own learning (this is arguably the single most important key skill see Section 2 A
Rationale for Key Skills and Section 3 Which Key Skills),
· they are assessed and accredited,
· they form part of appropriate learning activities, including workrelated activities,
Key Skills 35
· there are recording and tracking documents available to assist the student to recognise and
value opportunities for key skills achievement,
· they can be seen to have a direct bearing on employment and career prospects,
· learning support is available.
Here then is an agenda for placing key skills centrally into students’ areas of concern and
interest; all departments wishing to develop key skills will need to address each of these
issues in some detail, in planning their provision. To illustrate this, take for example, the
contextualisation of key skills development. It is obvious that engineering students can be
encouraged to make progress in the communication skill of writing good prose if what they
are writing about is set in an engineering context and the reward for improving the skill
contributes towards the assessment of an engineering topic. A researched miniproject which
has to be well written and presented is a common means of doing this but there are other
approaches. However, it requires that the engineering tutors in charge must have the
necessary high level of language skills and writing ability, or that they work in partnership
with a specialist tutor who does. Equally, to leave the task of supervision to a specialist alone
who is not an engineer is not a totally satisfactory alternative. It can break the essential link
of context for the students, and can also raise in their minds the very valid question, “If my
engineering tutors can’t do it, why should I need to do it?”
9.3 Key skills matched to individual needs
On entry into an undergraduate programme, students’ key skill competencies will vary
greatly. Whilst most will have communication and number skills at some level or another,
there may be those who have had little experience in group working, in planning and
managing their own learning, in critical thinking or in problem solving.
Whilst it is perfectly possible to give students diagnostic tests on entry, to see whether their
skills in number or communication are at a sufficiently high level for their degree
programmes, problem solving, group working or critical thinking tests are less available, and
not likely to meet the needs of every subject area. It is often more realistic to use normal
programmes of work as a vehicle for assessing these skills, and then deciding, in
consultation with the student, what further support may be needed (see Section 15 Sources
for key skills).
Of course, there will be situations where the most realistic course of action is to give all
students an introductory programme in some area of key skills, just to make sure that all are
starting at the same level in some essential skill. The danger, of course, is that this has to
operate at the lowest common denominator, and risks alienating many students.
Key Skills
36
Motivating Students: Review questions
department.
Improving students' understanding of key skills
How will students' previous achievements in key skills be acknowledged eg. through
Personal Development Profiles, APEL?
Will an induction programme be used to introduce key skills to every student?
To what extent are key skills an acknowledged part of every department's teaching strategy?
To what extent are key skills an acknowledged part of every department's assessment
arrangements?
To what extent are key skills explicit within every programme of study?
clear?
To what extent are the methods by which key skills are taught / learned / discussed with the
student?
To what extent are the criteria by which the student's performance in key skills are assessed
and recorded, explained to her/him?
Key Skills 37
Encouraging students to value key skills
To what extent is the value of key skills across the whole institution discussed with students?
Is the value and relationship between key skills and the student's chosen programme of
study described and explained?
Are key skills developed as a natural, central, and supportive part of the student's learning?
To what extent can students identify where they learn, develop and use key skills?
To what extent are key skills achievements recognised and accredited within all
undergraduate qualifications?
Are key skills achievements recognised and accredited as separate qualifications?
Are employers' requirements in respect of graduate key skills ascertained by a variety of
means?
To what extent are the requirements of employers in relation to key skills discussed with
students?
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38
Students’ decisions to include key skills within their programmes of study
Are students involved in any decisions to include key skills within university learning
programmes?
Are students included in any review/evaluation of key skills, and are their opinions sought?
To what extent are the needs of the individual student in respect of key skill requirements
acknowledged?
How best can the student be encouraged and supported to take control of her/his own
learning?
To what extent does the student elect to develop key skills within her/his programme of
study?
To what extent is the student responsible for recognising, recording and tracking her/his
achievements in key skills?
Is the acquisition of key skills as developed outside the formal programme of study (eg.
through Student Union work) recognised by the department?
Is the development and acquisition of key skills as part of work placements or similar work
recognised?
Are the student's career/employment ambitions recognised, and guidance and support
provided, with respect to key skills?
Key Skills 39
10 Support For Students
This section offers a number of starting points for discussion of the following four issues,
namely:
· what learning opportunities are (should be) provided to assist students in developing key
skills?
· what support do students need to improve their performance in key skills?
· how/where can/should support be provided?
· what are the implications of support provision for the institution and for departments?
10.1 What motivates a student to learn?
A variety of strategies are currently used within higher education for providing students with
opportunities to develop key skills. A survey of HE institutions in the late 1990s revealed that
all of the following arrangements are in use, often in combination.
· Key skills being fully integrated within some programmes of study,
· Key skills being part of an induction programme,
· A progressive, structured key skills programme operating for all students throughout the
institution,
· Key skills being added on to the curriculum (in, for example, a key skills module),
· Key skills workshop/access/on demand/dropin provision (often through a Learner Support
Department, or Careers Department),
· Recognition given to extracurricular key skills activities/achievements (that is, from outside
the mainstream academic programme),
· A student transcript or Personal Development Profile which includes key skills
achievements.
In some HE institutions, key skills formed a compulsory part of every teaching programme
while in others they were voluntary. In some institutions key skills were assessed and
accredited, in others not. In some institutions key skills were regarded as a means of
empowering students while in others they were regarded as too narrow and restrictive.
This diversity of provision has not changed, but the involvement has widened to more
universities and university departments. It is still rare to find a university in which there is a
single, consistent, common view of key skills and, in most places, individual departments
have considerable control over the skills that they include in their programmes and the
opportunities they provide for their development and assessment.
10.2 Support needed to improve key skills achievement
A survey by the CDELL team at the University of Nottingham on behalf of the Department for
Education and Employment (April 1997) of students who had newly entered higher education
revealed that significant numbers had yet to achieve QCA key skills at level 3 (defined as
appropriate for those taking A levels or the equivalent). Whilst there may now have been
some changes as a result of the Dearing recommendations on the introduction of key skills
for all 1619 year olds, it is probable that many students have still to develop these skills to a
level that is adequate if they are to be able to manage their own learning, as described in
Section 2 A Rationale for Key Skills.
Many universities and university departments make arrangements to support aspects of
learning and achievement in key skills.
Key Skills
40
The approaches include:
· selfappraisal and diagnostic testing/systems,
· student profiling systems,
· induction programmes/assignments,
· student support systems through a learning support unit or similar arrangement,
· student support within every programme,
· the provision of key skills support materials (such as study guides),
· the development of flexible learning resource centres,
· the development of integrated assignments within modules,
· studentled innovation in courses,
· work placement modules.
10.3 Support for students and where it is located
The form that support takes will depend on the policies and arrangements in place for the
delivery of key skills within the department or institution. The list above provides a check of
where support might be located. Broadly, the support is likely to take the form of one or more
of the following:
· tutoring system departmental and/or institutional,
· paper or electronically based support study materials, profiling and recording documents,
· accreditation systems either internal or external.
10.4 Implications for the department to provide student support
Whatever the motivation for key skills, there are implications for the university as a whole and
also for individual departments. Any systematic attempt to introduce key skills will have
implications not only for teaching and learning, but also across most aspects of HE provision
.
Some of the issues can be identified using the review questions at the end of this section.
Key Skills 41
Support For Students: Review questions
department.
Learning opportunities that are provided to assist students in developing key skills
Is there recognition of the key skills students have already achieved on entry to higher
education?
To what extent are key skills fully integrated within all teaching programmes?
Is there an induction programme in place for key skills?
Is there a universitywide structured key skills programme covering all years of
undergraduate courses?
Are there certain modules dedicated to key skills development?
Is there addon provision for key skills, and is this available for all students who elect for it?
Is there special workshop support for students with, for example, special educational needs?
To what extent is evidence of key skills achievements from valid extracurricular activities
recognised?
Is a student transcript, Personal Development Profile, or similar available for all students?
Key Skills
42
Support needed to improve key skills performance
Is a diagnostic system (or alternative) in place, to assess students' key skills capabilities and
achievements on entry?
Is a profiling/recording system in place to assist students to recognise, record, review and
track key skills achievements?
Is a learner support department or system available to assist students needing key skills
support?
Is a tutorial system in place to support students develop key skills within every teaching
programme?
Are key skills support materials (paperbased and/or electronic) available for all students?
Is library/resources centre(s) provision adequate to meet the demands of students requiring
key skills support?
Are assignments in place within all programmes which will enable students to develop their
key skills?
To what extent are there opportunities within the institution for students to initiate activities
themselves, which will further key skills development?
Is work place provision which promotes the development of key skills available for all
students that want it?
To what extent are assessment and accreditation systems in place to support the
development of key skills?
Key Skills 43
11 Being a Graduate
This section reviews a number of starting points and background ideas for the discussion of
three central issues:
· What general qualities and attitudes should a graduate possess?
· How should these be developed through a degree programme?
· What consequential changes should be made to degree programmes?
Your discussions may take you to other materials in particular Section 2 A Rationale for
Key Skills, Section 3 Which Key Skills?, Section 8 Teaching and Learning Key Skills,
Section 12 Assessment and Accreditation and Section 13 Graduate Employability.
11.1 Progression from graduation questions for discussion
Graduation is not an end in itself rather the end of a phase of education and development.
New graduates move into a whole spectrum of activity from voluntary work and temporary
employment, through to selfemployment, employment in small or medium sized enterprises
(SMEs), in large companies, into the professions or into further higher education.
Departments clearly need to consider how far they take account of the career destinations of
their students in planning their programmes, the qualities that make their graduates more
valuable in comparison with others, and whether these qualities are solely to do with
knowledge acquisition of the experiences that will foster the development of these qualities
or attributes. Some of the review questions that follow may help in addressing these issues.
One way of categorising degree courses is to group them according to whether or not they
lead directly to a specific vocation or professional qualification. For example, degrees
courses in some other arts subjects would be in the latter. The former could be crudely
labelled 'specialist', and the latter 'generalist'.
So called specialist degree courses by their nature can lead directly into employment.
However, many graduates with such degrees find that after a few years, their job demands
are changing and the detailed knowledge they acquired during their degree courses is less
essential or has been superseded. Or they find themselves moving into different employment
areas altogether, where other skills and abilities are to the fore. Graduates cannot rely on
knowledge gained at university to see them through their careers rather they have to be
able to be 'lifelong learners'. Their ability to adapt, to embrace new knowledge, new
circumstances, new ways of working is critical.
Some university teachers may see the natural goal of a good graduate as being to continue
into academic research and a higher degree. But this is not the goal of most students.
Rather, they see their degrees as stepping stones to 'good' employment. In fact, of every 10
graduates, about 7 move directly into settled employment or further professional training.
Only one stays in study/research. The other two are in shortterm employment or
unemployed (Association of Graduate Recruiters, 1996).
Employing graduates is expensive – both in initial training and in higher salaries. So why do
employers seek good graduates? What are the qualities and skills that employers are looking
for? What are the benefits graduates will bring to enterprises? What skills developed at
university do new employees use in the workplace?
11.2 Student views
In one investigation, graduates in English were surveyed a year after entering employment
and were asked
" What do you feel you gained from your experience as a student in the English department?"
A large number chose to respond by naming skills. Over 40 skills were named, including:
Key Skills
44
· communicate ideas effectively in speech and writing,
· problem solving ability to approach problems from unusual angles ability to analyse and
assess to organise thoughts critical thinking to construct an argument think for oneself
independence of mind,
· awareness of alternative viewpoints, social and political awareness intellectual
adaptability,
· perseverance powers of concentration.
11.3 Employers' views
What are employers looking for in new graduates? Employment is far less hierarchical in
structure, more level, where teamwork is the norm. So the abilities to communicate and to
work well with others are essential. Change is a constant feature, so the abilities to learn new
skills, to adapt to new situations are central too. Along with these are skills like action
planning, negotiating, and networking together with self awareness and confidence. Old
certainties have gone. In the new vocabulary of graduate careers ladders have become
bridges, rising income and security have become maintaining employability, education and
training have become lifelong learning. Graduates have to learn to be adaptable.
Four reasons stand out for the employment of graduates (Harvey & Knight, 1996); these are:
· the knowledge and ideas that graduates bring to an organisation,
· their willingness to learn and speed of learning,
· their flexibility, adaptability and ability to deal with change,
· their logical, analytical, critical, problemsolving and synthetic skills, and the impact they
have on innovation.
Selfreliance skills are important, too. Research with 160 unemployed graduates disclosed
that poor selfawareness, poor decisionmaking abilities, poor networking skills, outof date
views of what jobs entailed, lack of selfconfidence and lack of career focus were common to
many. Positive action to minimise these would make such graduates more employable
(Association of Graduate Recruiters,1996).
11.4 Adapting to new situations
In all these listings, selfreliance skills stand out, such as self awareness, selfpromotion,
coping with uncertainty, able to develop self, able to apply and transfer skills to new contexts.
This last is a higher skill in itself skills are not automatically transferable – and should be
one of the important outcomes of a student’s time spent in HE. From being only able to
experience a skill without any reflection on it, the effective learner progresses through
developing skills of reflection and critical thinking, to being able to draw together their
learning and skills through concepts and models, to review and adapt models of thinking and
to take responsibility and control.
Lists and definitions of transferable skills abound many overlapping. You will find more
about these in Section 12 Assessment and Accreditation.
In a survey of managers (Harvey, Moon and Geall, 1997) three quarters indicated that
graduates are definitely cost effective, whilst fourfifths of graduates were unconditionally
positive about their experience of higher education. Most strategic managers saw graduates
as brighter, sharper and more analytical than nongraduates, and many of the attributes
listed already appear in the survey findings (adaptability, flexibility, more mature, able to work
things out for themselves, among many). The critical, analytical and reflective element of
higher education is arguably the essence of a graduate programme (HEQC 1996). It is
people who have higher level intellectual skills and who can combine them with well
developed communication, teamworking and interpersonal skills, that can help transform
organisations and enable them to stay ahead of their competitors.
Key Skills 45
11.5 Recognising skills
The assessing and recording of skills is dealt with in Section 12 Assessment and
Accreditation. In passing, we may note that the requirement to assess and record skills can
be a consequence of the modularisation of many courses, with the associated wider range of
course options available to students. Selfassessment of skills can bring benefits, through
increasing the status and awareness of skills being developed, and through enabling
students to reflect on the skills they have acquired (Eggins, 1992).
11.6 Quality and Learning
There is a tension between 'quality as accountability' and 'quality as transformation'. Harvey
and Knight (1996) argue that the former led to a 'compliance' model of HE. What is needed is
the 'transformation' of students through the process of higher education and the necessary
transformation of many courses to enable this to happen. Education should be a participative
process. A prime goal is to enable the students to become critical reflective learners.
Assessment can reinforce goals of transformation, or can subvert them completely.
Two elements of transformation are the development of expertise within a domain and the
transformation of the reasoning, thinking and perspectives of the student. The process is
evolutionary. For instance, the initial concerns of the student may be to produce a properly
constructed report or essay, or to present arguments to a group; later concerns may be more
to do with developing as an independent and critical learner, to develop selfawareness so as
to locate wellmatched career directions.
Interestingly, in the survey referred to, content items that related to the learning process were
rated as more important in assessing quality than those that related to what is learned.
Harvey and Knight put forward three ways in which people deal with new information; either
· they do not notice it, or
· they assimilate it, glossing over discordant data and seeing what they want to see, or
· they face a logical conflict and revise their underlying views to accommodate the new data
not an easy thing to do.
Key Skills
46
Being a Graduate: Review questions
department.
In what ways do those planning degree courses bear a responsibility to take into account the
career destinations of their students?
Are there any qualities which make the graduate valuable in comparison with others of their
age?
Are these qualities solely to do with knowledge acquisition?
If not, what other qualities are sought after?
What experiences during a degree course will foster the development of these qualities or
attributes?
Why do employers seek good graduates?
What are the qualities and skills that employers are looking for?
What are the benefits graduates will bring to enterprises?
What skills developed at university do new employees use in the workplace?
What implications are there for degree course planners?
Should students' views on styles of learning in a degree course be taken into account?
If so, how should these views be obtained? What action should be taken?
What benefits might be gained?
What evidence is there from other universities of benefits from more diverse teaching and
learning approaches?
Whose responsibility is the provision of opportunities for the development of key skills in
degree programmes?
Key Skills 47
12 Assessment And Accreditation
This section poses a number of questions regarding the assessment of student competence
in key skills, and the decisions that need to be taken about the nature of accreditation that
will be available to students. The questions to be addressed are:
· What are the benefits from assessing key skills for students and for departments?
· What needs to be done about the specification and delivery of the key skills within the
student programme?
· What will be the implications for teaching and learning strategies?
· What sort of evidence best demonstrates key skill competence and how can the evidence
be managed?
· What approaches to assessment might be appropriate and how can the outcomes be
recorded?
· What options are there for accreditation of student achievement in key skills?
12.1 What are the benefits from assessing key skills?
It has been generally accepted that key skills are taken more seriously by students where
they are seen to be relevant to their programme of study, the task in hand, and where they
are assessed. Unless students see the benefits from key skills assessment and accreditation
they will always be likely to regard them as secondary to their main programme of study.
Staff may take the same view.
Benefits of assessing key skills might be that:
· students and staff are made more conscious of key skill achievement,
· a perception that skills which are more explicit are more highly valued,
· individual progress can be monitored,
· the effectiveness of teaching and learning can be monitored,
· shortcomings in skill competencies can be identified and recorded,
· students and employers may see the degree course as more relevant to the external world.
Drawbacks to assessing key skills are likely to revolve around the workloads and time
involved for students and staff, and the extent to which priorities might lie elsewhere.
12.2 How can key skills be assessed and recorded?
There is no single, definitive model for the assessment and recording of key skills within
higher education programmes. The assessment process is, however, no different from the
assessment of any other part of the student's course. There are therefore a number of key
principles that need to be addressed by course teams as they consider the approaches they
are going to adopt. These are:
· the requirement for a clear formulation of the key skills as part of the specified learning
outcomes for the course,
· a description of the manner in which the skills will be delivered or taught,
· their applicability to the course
· the various contexts in which they will be taught
· the teaching and learning strategies to be employed
· the nature and variety of the different sorts of evidence to be produced by the student,
· direct and indirect evidence
· written, oral, audiovisual, threedimensional, pictorial, graphical etc
· from within the course and from extracurricular/institution experience
· the pattern of assessment,
· the assessment criteria (which should essentially be defined by the specified
learning
outcomes) and levels or thresholds of performance
Key Skills
48
· the methods and contexts of assessment (by coursework, controlled assignment,
observations etc) which must be appropriate to the criteria
· the personnel involved (tutor(s), student, peers, other third parties) and their relative
contributions to the assessment process,
· the timing of the assessments,
· the management and presentation of the evidence,
· the recording mechanism – whether marks/grades, competent/not yet competent, levels,
profile, statements etc.
12.3 Making judgements of performance
As with all judgements about student performance, the key to the successful assessment of
key skills lies in the evidence produced by the student. There is no other basis upon which
you can assess the student's achievement. Assessment is therefore first and foremost a
matter of obtaining relevant evidence, relevant that is, in the sense that it enables the student
to demonstrate the extent to which she or he has met a specified learning outcome. The
production of relevant evidence, however, depends entirely upon the teaching strategies and
learning opportunities provided by the tutors.
The traditional set piece examination which normally produces mainly written evidence and
then only in narrow forms of writing is unlikely to be appropriate for the assessment of key
skills. Although there will be an underpinning cognitive element to the development of such
skills, their very essence is that they involve being able to do something. They are concerned
more with setting knowledge and understanding in context of a performance, and the
evidence required to judge student achievement should be drawn from relevant learning
situations in which they can perform (demonstrate) the skills. The tutor's task is therefore to
provide a range of different learning contexts and activities from which evidence can be
derived. These might include:
workbased activities group work practical activities role play

presentations simulations problemsolving activities
case studies interviews supported selfdirected study
12.4 Objectivity, reliability, quantity and quality
Tutors are sometimes anxious about objectivity and reliability of their assessment of key
skills.
Linked to this is a concern about the quantity of evidence required to make assessment
judgements. The response to both of these concerns lies in the quality of the accumulated
evidence.
Quality refers to the extent to which the separate pieces and the collected body of evidence
confirm a student's ability to satisfy the learning outcome(s). It is important therefore:
· to collect some different types of evidence,
· that the evidence is taken from some different sorts of activities,
· that the activities are carried out on different occasions over the period of the programme.
This will give the student and tutor the opportunity to develop and confirm competence in a
range of different contexts, thereby making it more likely that the skills have been learned
adequately, and will be capable of being used in other contexts.
12.5 Who to involve in the assessment process
There is also the matter of who should be involved in the assessment process. Whilst the
tutor must be responsible for making the final summative assessment, at the formative stage
the student, her or his peers and others can contribute positively to the process. Diagnostic
feedback from the tutor, reflective selfassessment by the student, and observations from
Key Skills 49
peers and other third parties should be part of a continuous process that improves learning
and integrates it with assessment. Effective collaboration between these key players might
involve assessments being made by:
Observation of the student during normal coursebased activities, on work placement, or
performing under simulated conditions; this can be recorded on paper or using an
audio/visual recording.
Selfassessment using log books and diaries maintained by the student, in which she or he
can comment on progress and achievement, reflect on activities and outcomes, and identify
further work.
Third party witness testimony in which the student's peers and other third parties,
including people outside the university such as work placement supervisors, can provide
useful corroborative information about the student's performance in a range of contexts.
Examining products where tangible evidence of the student's work (in a permanent form) is
available for inspection by the tutor or others.
Review and reflection sessions between tutor and student, held on a regular basis, enable
both to gain a clearer understanding of the processes which have gone into the student's
work, and to agree future learning targets as part of the student's action plan.
Extended questioning which supplements other evidence of performance, and particularly
assesses underpinning knowledge and understanding.
12.6 The management of evidence
Normally, the formative assessment process involves a compilation of a body of evidence
that enables the individual’s progress and achievement over time to be charted. However,
there is always the risk that the amount of evidence will become so unwieldy as to frustrate
its use in a formative manner. One method which has become increasingly popular is the
compilation of evidence in a portfolio. Ideally, this is managed by the student within clear
guidelines designed to avoid the problems of bulk, by emphasising the need for quality and
relevance rather than quantity. A well managed portfolio can clearly be used to enable the
student to become a reflective learner a crucial part of the key skill of Managing One’s Own
Learning and Performance and will at the same time provide the evidence upon which a
summative judgement may be made by the tutor. Moreover, the portfolio can also serve as a
convenient mechanism for the student to track progress against key skill specifications.
By the academic year 20052006, all HEIs are expected to have in place their own policies
for the implementation of Personal Development Planning (PDP). PDP is ‘a structured and
supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their own learning,
performance and / or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career
development’.
PDP is part of the Progress File for Higher Education, where the Progress File will provide
each student with:
· A transcript a record of their learning and achievement
· A means by which the student can ‘monitor, build and reflect upon their personal
development’.
12.7 Recording outcomes of assessment
Several approaches are available for recording assessment outcomes. It will be important to
make sure that the record of the assessment of key skills can be integrated into other
assessments made within the department.
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Using marks or grades. Marks and grades may be an appropriate way of recording
decisions about some individual pieces of evidence. However, at some point, an overall
judgement has to be made about whether a person is competent in a particular skill or
part of a skill, and simply adding up marks or averaging grades may not answer that
question.
Checking off performance criteria. If assessments are being made in relation to
some criteria, then a decision may well be that the students has or has not met a
particular criterion in some work that he or she has done. The danger with this type of
decision is that assessment becomes a checklist process – ticking off criteria until all
have been satisfied, but not addressing the overall decision about whether, on the
balance of evidence available, the individual is competent in a skill or portion of a skill.
Using holistic judgements. There are some areas where broad judgements, perhaps
covering a number of performance criteria, are unavoidable. For example, judging
competence in making an oral presentation involves considering several criteria at
once, with evidence that is transitory. Recording may help a bit, but is not wholly
satisfactory. In practice tutors are likely to develop, through experience, a basis for
judgement that allows a broad decision about competence to be made that is often
wholly valid and sufficiently reliable for most purposes.
Reviewing. Where evidence is available in a portfolio, or several pieces of evidence
can be considered at different times, the validity and reliability of the overall judgement
of competence are likely to be much higher than for individual items.
Profiling. It is possible to develop a hierarchical series of profile statements (which can
be stored on computer) which can be used to reflect the student's progress towards
competence. Indeed such a hierarchy may already be implied within learning
outcomes, and may refer directly to levels of competence in specific skills. It is
important that this type of profile does not become a treadmill – it has value only if it
enables better tracking of progress, and a more precise understanding of learning
needs and achievement.
12.8 Accreditation
For many departments it will be sufficient to establish key skills within their own course
structures, and assess these in the context of their wider assessment practices. For others,
there may be an issue of relating their assessment to an institutionwide process. In both
cases, accreditation is essentially internal, and subject to the same processes as all other
assessment. This is true whether a department develops its own definitions for key skills, or
uses an external structure, such as is available from QCA.
Some universities and departments have chosen to relate their work on key skills to an
external reference, particularly in dealing with some of the more recent developments in
Graduate Apprenticeships and Foundation Degrees. There is a range of decisions that can
be made, including:
· Integration embodying the key skills as an integral part of a course of study or
qualification so that successful completion of the course indicates successful demonstration
of the skills, with no separate endorsement,
· Diploma adopting or devising a bespoke instrument such as a Diploma or Certificate, or
utilising something like a Progress File as the vehicle for recording information about the
student's key skills achievements,
· External using an external agency either to provide an award or underwrite the standard.
Examples of this approach would be the CGLI Licentiate, the RSA, the Open College
Network, an NVQ Awarding Body or one of the enrichment programmes,
Key Skills 51
· Free Standing free standing accreditation disconnected from any other qualification or
course the student might be following.
It will be important to ensure that the chosen approach maintains the relationship between
the key skills achievement and the contexts in which it occurred and was assessed.
Otherwise, the credibility of the accreditation may be reduced, and the value of the key skills
achievement diminished.
Some of the issues can be identified using the review questions at the end of this section.
Key Skills
52
Assessment and Accreditation: Review questions
department. Some of these may overlap with issues in other sections.
Specification and delivery of key skills
What key skills will be relevant to the student programme?
To what extent are key skills explicit and clearly specified within every programme?
To what extent are key skills an acknowledged part of the department's teaching strategy?
To what extent are key skills an acknowledged part of the department's assessment
arrangements?
clear?
Are criteria by which the student's performance in key skills is assessed and recorded
explained to her/him?
Key Skills 53
Teaching and learning strategies and evidence of achievement
What are the main teaching and learning styles currently employed?
To what extent are the methods by which key skills are taught /l earned / discussed with the
student?
To what extent do students identify where they learn, develop and use key skills?
What evidence of achievement is most typically produced by students?
Does it reveal information about key skills achievement?
What other teaching & learning styles would be appropriate to the course and the promotion
of key skills?
Is the acquisition of key skills developed outside the formal programme of study recognised?
What staff development needs may arise in order to extend teaching and learning styles?
What are the likely resource implications?
What mechanism(s) are used to track student progress in key skills? Are they satisfactory?
To what extent are students responsible for recognising, recording and tracking their
achievements in key skills?
What additional tutor support might students require to assist key skill development?
Key Skills
54
Assessing, recording and accreditation
Are key skills an acknowledged part of the department's assessment arrangements?
Is the student encouraged and supported to take control of her/his own learning, and to
participate in the assessment process?
Is peer assessment and other third party assessment used?
Is the acquisition of key skills developed outside the formal programme of study (including
work placement) recognised?
What are the main assessment techniques currently used in the department?
What alternative techniques may be necessary?
How do you currently record student achievement?
Is it appropriate for recording key skill performance?
What changes to recording systems may be needed?
To what extent are key skills achievements recognised and accredited within all
undergraduate qualifications?
Should key skills achievements be recognised and accredited as separate qualifications?
What form of accreditation would be most appropriate for our students?
Key Skills 55
13 Graduate Employability
The nature of graduate employment has undergone significant change within the last
decade. All predictions suggest that the pace of that change will increase in the 21st century.
This section looks at graduate employability, and in particular the emphasis on the key skills
which recruiters say are becoming increasingly important. The questions addressed by the
paper are:
· What are universities doing to promote key skills within their institutions?
· What are they doing to obtain support from external agencies in order to encourage the
development of key skills among their students?
13.1 Why key skills are important for graduates
If anything is certain in an age of rapidly changing technology and the growth of the global
market, it is the fact that the cohorts of students graduating from university degree
programmes now need to be able to respond to change, and indeed to anticipate the speed
and direction of change, in order simply to maintain their position in the workforce
(Association of Graduate Recruiters,1996).
The message is that
"the pace of change is often reflected in the demands of employers for graduates who
are flexible and adaptable"
in a world in which
"knowledge and skills rapidly become obsolete".
The prospect facing future graduates is not just one of frequent movement between
companies whilst following a particular vocational or professional path. It is likely rather to be
more about a process of adjustment and refocusing of career opportunities and aspirations
according to the state of the international economy, and particularly in the case of UK
graduates, the European economy.
Many of them may also eventually face the challenge of selfemployment, either by design as
a planned career move or because of circumstances beyond their control. It is therefore a
matter of both changing roles and changing expectations for graduates.
What all this means is that graduates will need to develop new skills, or enhance their
existing skills, if they are to survive the challenges of working in the 21st Century. Initiatives
such as Enterprise in Higher Education and Education for Capability have already raised
the level of awareness among university staff and students about the need for broadening
the curriculum experience in order to develop and recognise wider forms of achievement
relevant to the needs of the market economy. But according to both large and small/medium
employers in the graduate recruitment market, much still remains to be done. In general
there is continuing concern about the apparent lack of number skills among graduates, their
failure to communicate effectively, both in writing and orally, and their inability to use even
basic information technology applications. With regard to engineering graduates, the focus
would seem to be mostly on the lack of communication skills. This is a perception that
universities and students can illafford to ignore.
But employers also increasingly stress the need for "skills for employability", namely:
· the ability to work as part of a team; networking
· selfreliance: the ability to manage one's own learning and recognise professional
development needs, action planning
· management processes such as problem solving and decisionmaking, negotiating.
Key Skills
56
These are the skills required for the senior management positions to which many graduates
will aspire, and there is no reason why they should not be encouraged within the university
curriculum.
Indeed, it might be argued that they should be at the very heart of the student experience.
They are decidedly not just skills for the workplace.
Key Skills 57
Graduate Employability: Review questions
department.
Promoting key skills within the institution
What priority is attached to key skills by the university?
To what extent are key skills explicit and clearly specified within every programme of study?
To what extent are key skills an acknowledged part of the department's teaching strategy?
To what extent are key skills an acknowledged part of the department's assessment
arrangements?
Is the value of key skills across the whole institution discussed with students?
Are key skills developed as a natural, central and supportive part of the student's
programme?
What special teaching and learning styles and materials are employed to develop key skills?
How are students encouraged to become selfreliant, independent learners?
How are employers' key skill requirements discussed with students?
To what extent is the acquisition of key skills developed outside the student's formal
programme of study recognised?
Key Skills
58
Is the development of key skills within work placements formally recognised?
What support regarding key skills is available to students from careers advisers?
To what extent are key skills recognised and accredited within all undergraduate
qualifications?
To what extent are key skills recognised and accredited as separate qualifications?
How does the university ascertain employers' requirements regarding graduates' key skills?
What contribution do employers make to the university's curriculum content and/or delivery,
and to its work in general?
What contacts have been made with agencies such as TECs, Chambers of Commerce, and
Business Link?
What use is made of alumni in helping to form links with employers, and in running
workshops for undergraduates?
What contacts exist with SMEs (small/medium enterprises) as a source of support,
placements and employment for graduates?
Key Skills 59
14 Departmental Agenda Items
This section consists of nine agendas for reflection and discussion in university departments.
They can be used by individuals but will be more effective when used in small groups.
The agendas are:
1. What are key skills and what can they do for us?
2. Rationale and approach to key skills.
3. Current key skills provision.
4. Managing and teaching key skills.
5. Induction and development issues.
6. Monitoring, recording and accrediting achievement.
7. Resource implications.
8. Monitoring and evaluating key skills.
9. Involving students in key skills decisions the Student Agenda.
14.1 About the agendas for a department
The rationale for introducing key skills into student degree and equivalent programmes is
discussed elsewhere in these materials (see Agenda 1). The purpose of this section of the
pack is to assist departments that are in the process of considering their policy towards key
skills. On the evidence of current practice in further and higher education, the decision they
take is likely to have wideranging implications. It will raise questions that will need to be
addressed at various levels within the institution, including managers, departments and
students.
The questions posed in the agendas relate to matters of programme planning, teaching and
learning styles, assessment and recording, staff development, student support, and
resourcing. On each agenda there are:
· three or four discussion points (in the form of questions),
· references to relevant sections in the pack,
· references to relevant source materials.
It is not intended that a department would have to work through a complete agenda on a
single occasion or, indeed, address all nine of them. Rather, the questions can be addressed
over time, as and when they may arise in the course of the department's normal
development programme. Some departments may of course have made significant progress
in the field of key skills, in which case they may need only to consider relatively few issues on
the agendas. They may, however, find the complete set helpful in monitoring the
implementation of current policy. The university may have decided that all student
programmes will include a key skills component. The implementation of the decision will be
the responsibility of individual departments. Alternatively, an individual department may have
decided to take the initiative on its own behalf and be planning to develop key skills provision
for its students. In either case, what are the main issues that will need to be considered?
Agenda 1: What are key skills and what can they do for us?
· What are key skills?
· Why has the decision to investigate key skills been taken?
· What can key skills do for this department and its students?
It is likely that a number of issues and questions will arise during your discussions of this
agenda. The sections which will probably be most relevant to your discussions are:
2 Rationale for key skills; 3 Which key skills? and 4 Programme Audit.
Agenda 2: Rationale and approach to key skills
Key Skills
60
· What will be the department's rationale for key skills can we make use of QCA key skills
specifications?
· What will be the relationship between the key skills and the rest of the student programme?
· Could the key skills be (a) integrated within the student course/programme, (b) provided as
an addition to the course/programme, or (c) provided using some combined approach?
2 Rationale for Key Skills; 3 Which Key Skills? and 4 Programme Audit.
Agenda 3: Current key skills provision
· What is the current provision of key skills within the department how will it be audited?
· What is the current level of key skill activity and achievement among students?
· What benefits will the introduction of key skills bring for students?
· What benefits will the introduction of key skills bring for staff?
4 Programme Audit; 6 Managing Key Skills; 7 Motivating and Supporting Staff and 10
Support for Students.
Agenda 4: Managing and teaching key skills
· How will we manage the introduction of key skills?
· What changes in course structures may be required?
· What changes may be needed in the way courses/programmes are described to students?
· What are the implications for current teaching and learning styles and methods?
7 Motivating and Supporting Staff; 9 Motivating Students and 10 Support for Students.
Agenda 5: Induction and Development
· What induction will be needed for students?
· What induction will be needed for staff?
· What are the implications for current teaching and learning styles?
6 Managing Key Skills; 7 Motivating and Supporting Staff; 10 Support for Students.
Agenda 6: Monitoring, recording and accrediting achievement
· Will key skills be assessed and accredited if so by whom?
· What approaches will be used for the assessment of key skills?
· What strategies will be used to assess and monitor students' key skills achievements?
· How will a student's progress against key skills be tracked?
· Who will be responsible for recording and tracking key skills the student, tutors, support
staff?
Key Skills 61
4 Programme Audit; 11 Graduateness; 12 Assessment and Accreditation; 13 Graduate
Employability.
Agenda 7: Resource Implications
· What are the main resource implications in terms of time?
· What are the main resource implications in terms of access to support materials, including
Information Technology?
· What are the main resource implications in terms of staffing?
7 Motivating and Supporting Staff and 10 Support for Students.
Agenda 8: Monitoring and evaluating key skills
· How will key skills be monitored and evaluated?
· What quality criteria will be used to measure the effectiveness of key skills provision?
agenda. The sections which will probably be most relevant to your discussions are
11 Graduateness; 12 Assessment and Accreditation and 13 Graduate Employability
Agenda 9: Involving students in key skills decisions
· What induction policy/programme do you have in place to introduce students to key skills?
· What opportunities should there be to involve students in the decision to introduce/extend
key skills provision?
· What responsibility should students be given for managing their own learning?
· What degree of cooperation will be needed between staff and students?
· What part will students play in the assessment and recording of their achievement in key
skills?
agenda. The sections which will probably be most relevant to your discussions are
10 Support for Students and 13 Graduate Employability.
Key Skills
62
15 Resources for Introducing and Supporting Key Skills
15.1 Universities with key skills resources available online
The following provides an overview of some of the Key Skills provisions, resources and
developments within universities. The Staff and Professional Development Units or Careers
Service within your own institution may also be able to provide resources and guidance in
this area.
University of Birmingham www.bham.ac.uk
The University of Birmingham has developed a ‘Guide to Effective Learning’.
www.is.bham.ac.uk/gel/ (24 March 2004) is a website aimed at helping students to develop
good study skills and provides links to sources of assistance.
University of Bradford www.bradford.ac.uk
The University of Bradford's Student Self Development and Key Skills Project! Funded by the
DfEE, the project was launched on April 1, 1998. It aims to enhance the key skills and
competencies of students in response to recommendations made by Dearing and graduate
recruiters.
http://www.brad.ac.uk/admin/studev/html/keyskills.htm
Brunel University www.brunel.ac.uk/~mastmmg/ssguide/sshome.htm (24 March 2004)
A guide to Study Skills produced by a lecturer at Brunel University. The site is aimed at
students and covers all areas of study skills from lectures to revision to exams.
De Montfort University www.dmu.ac.uk
Very well developed key skills support programme for all students on entry. Key skills are
also embedded in a number of degree programmes.
http://www.study.dmu.ac.uk/KeySkills/ (24 March 2004)
Imperial College, London www.ic.ac.uk
There is a ‘Science Communication Group’ at the University which designs and offers
courses in oral presentations, group work and communication skills tailored to the specific
needs of departments. The aim is to embed key transferable skills in both graduate and
undergraduate courses. There is also a website for students entitled ‘Developing Your
Personal Transferable Skills’ www.huxley.ic.ac.uk/Local/Careers/pts.htm (24 March 2004)
University of Nottingham www.nottingham.ac.uk
The Centre for Developing and Evaluating Lifelong Learning (CDELL) has been involved in
key skills development and evaluation work for a number of years and team members have
written widely on the subject (www.nottingham.ac.uk/education/cdell). (24 March 2004)
Open University www.open.ac.uk
The Open University, Vocational Qualifications Centre (http://www.open.ac.uk/vqportal (24
March 2004)) has carried out pioneering work on key skills for a number of years. The
University also has a section of its website dedicated to key skills see
http://www.open.ac.uk/keyskills/ (24 March 2004)
University of Salford www.salford.ac.uk
The Salford Key Skills Project was designed to provide a transferable model of
undergraduate key skills development and delivery. The SKSP has established eleven
individual faculty and discipline based key skills projects, four crossuniversity Development
Groups and an IT Diagnostic Group. See www.edu.salford.ac.uk/keyskills/ (24 March 2004)
Key Skills 63
Sheffield Hallam University www.shu.ac.uk
At Sheffield Hallam University a number of strategies have been used to promote key skills
including the creation of networks of interested staff, staff development activities, curriculum
development work and involvement in course planning, and the production of support
materials. The Key to Key Skills was a TLTP3 project to provide guidance for other students
on skills and leads them to further support, and to see how it might be implemented in other
Higher Education institutions, see www.shu.ac.uk/keytokey/ (24 March 2004)
University of Surrey www.surrey.ac.uk
Surrey has a well developed key skills support provision and key skills are embedded in a
number of degree programmes (especially those involving work placements). The website
includes information about the work of Skills and Personal Development, information for staff
and students, reports and publications, online skills materials. See www.surrey.ac.uk/Skills/
(24 March 2004)
University of Warwick www.warwick.ac.uk
The Centre for Education and Industry (sponsored by CEI) offers a number of key skills
modules at (QCA) level 4. The website contains comments from students and work with
employers. The University awards a ‘The Warwick Skills Certificate’ to successful candidates.
See www2.warwick.ac.uk/cll/skills/ugrad/skillscert/ (24 March 2004)
University of York www.york.ac.uk
The university’s York Award programme www.york.ac.uk/admin/ya/ (24 March 2004) has
been developed by the University of York to enable education and employers to work in
partnership to the benefit of its students. The personal development programme is aimed at
developing students' understanding of the world of work by addressing key skills such as
communication, numeracy, improving own learning, working with others, information literacy,
financial literacy, time management, negotiation.
15.2 Engineering Subject Centre Resources
Resources on Key Skills, Employability, Sustainability and Personal Development Planning
are all available through the Engineering Subject Centre Resource Database, please see
www.engsc.ac.uk/er/resources/
Enhancing Transferable Skills Development in Group Projects through the use of
Training Exercises
This MiniProject investigated an enhanced approach to the development of transferable
skills within student group projects. The skills to be developed are identified and the students
undertake a series of focussed participative skills training exercises before embarking on
their application within the main project. The MiniProject Guide aims to provide practical
guidance for lecturers developing and running such coupled projects and contains: general
guidance on how to set up and use training exercises in projects and outline case studies
demonstrating an application of the approach to developing: teamwork, meeting and
negotiation skills.
"Day Projects" : Intensive Skills Training For Engineering Students
This project is concerned with the dissemination and development of a novel teaching
approach successfully deployed at the University of Hertfordshire. Students are given a
specific problem and are required to produce a working solution within an 8hour laboratory
session. Through this process, students gain useful experience of commercial engineering
issues, including: problem analysis/breakdown, working to restricted deadlines,
hardware/software interaction, fault diagnosis, negotiation and cooperative working, etc.
Key Skills
64
15.3 National Key Skills Projects
DEBS Developing Business Skills in Land and Property Management Courses
This project aimed to define the relevant business skills in land and property management
and build on current work by identifying and producing a) appropriate teaching and learning
materials, b) relevant assessment techniques, and c) recommending curriculum changes to
enhance to enhance the attainment of these skills. Materials and guidance for tutors are now
available including a literature review, guide for teaching skills, case studies and student
exercises are available from www.debs.ac.uk
RAPID 2000 Promoting Skill Development on Undergraduate Programmes in Civil
and Building Engineering: a Strategic Approach based on Professional Development
needs.
The RAPID 2000 Project's aim is to promote skills development on undergraduate
programmes in civil and building engineering, based on professional development needs.
The project team, based at Loughborough University, have developed seven customised
Webbased RAPID Progress Files covering a range of (mainly) construction related
disciplines including Civil Engineering and Quantity Surveying.
To date these versions of the RAPID Progress File have been used by over 2000 students
on Built Environment and Civil Engineering degree programmes in 12 Higher Education
Institutions.
http://rapid2k.lboro.ac.uk/
The Higher Education Academy www.heacademy.ac.uk
The Higher Education Academy has resources available and is funding projects in the areas
of Employability and Personal Development Planning. See in particular
www.heacademy.ac.uk/PDP.htm (16 December 2004) and
www.heacademy.ac.uk/Employability.htm (16 December 2004)
15.4 Other sources
Recording Achievement Centre for the UK www.recordingachievement.org
The Centre for Recording Achievement (CRA) is a national network organisation which
supports good practice and the sharing of experience in Recording Achievement, Personal
Development Planning and Progress Files within educational institutions and professional
bodies.
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority www.qca.org.uk/keyskills (24 March 2004)
An important and extensive source of information related to the specification and operation of
the QCA key skills.
DfES www.dfes.gov.uk/keyskills/ (24 March 2004)
This site outlines the Government's position on key skills, looks at some of the issues which
surround future developments and aims to identify where key skills fit within qualifications,
education and training programmes.
Key Skills 65
16 References
Allen, M. (1992). Improving the Personal Skills of Graduates. Employment Department,
Sheffield.
Association of Graduate Recruiters (1996) Skills for Graduates in the 21st Century. AGR:
Cambridge.
Dearing, R. (1995). Review of Qualifications for 16 19 year olds. SCAA. London.
Harvey, L. and Knight, P. (1996). Transforming Higher Education. Open University Press.
Milton Keynes.
Harvey, L., et al. (1997). Graduates Work Organisational Change and Student Attributes.
AGR. Cambridge.
Jackson, N., (2001) Personal Development Planning: What does it mean? Working Paper 1.
LTSN Generic Centre, York
Murphy, R., et al. (1997). The Key Skills of Students Entering Higher Education. University of
Nottingham School of Education, Nottingham.
Murphy, R., et al. (1997) Supporting Key Skills in Higher Education: A staff Development
Pack. University of Nottingham School of Education, Nottingham.
Murphy, R. (2001) Assessing key skills in higher education. LTSN Generic Centre, York
Key Skills
66
The Engineering Subject Centre is the national centre for all engineering academics in the
UK. It provides subject based support to promote quality learning and teaching by stimulating
the sharing of good practice and innovation in learning and teaching.
· Providing a national focus that is an accepted and essential point of contact for all
involved in learning and teaching in higher education engineering.
· Collating and disseminating good practice and innovation in learning and teaching in
higher education engineering.
· Providing coordination and support for the embedding of quality learning and
teaching in higher education engineering.
Alternative Formats
This publication can be downloaded from the Engineering Subject Centre website
www.engsc.ac.uk. Please call 01509 227170 for alternative format versions.
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