Solent University

Coursework Assessment Brief

Assessment Details

Module Title: PPD1 Awareness of Self

Module Code: QHO421
Module Leader: Joy Umekwe
Level: 4
Assessment Title: Individual Pitch Presentation
Assessment Number: 1
Assessment Type: Presentation
Restrictions on Time/Word Count: 10 minutes + 5 mins Q&A
6 slides maximum – see below for further details
Consequence of not meeting There is no penalty for submitting below the
time/word count limit: word/count limit, but students should be aware that
there is a risk they may not maximise their potential
mark.

Assignments should be presented appropriately in line

with the restrictions stated above; if an assignment
exceeds the time/word count this will be taken in
account in the marks given using the assessment
criteria shown.*
Individual/Group: Individual
Assessment Weighting: 100%
Issue Date: w/b 2nd November 2020
Hand In Date: Friday 12th February – 4pm
Planned Feedback Date: Within 20 working days
Mode of Submission: Online upload of slides and presentation
Number of copies to be submitted: 1

Anonymous Marking This assessment:

Is exempt from anonymous marking.

Assessment Task
The Confederation of British Industries (2019) undertook an education and skills survey of
190,000 employers and work-readiness was a major theme, in which over a 1/3 of
employers felt that young people were not work ready. In addition, they also found that
there were “three consistent themes that unite every attempt to define ‘work readiness’ -
knowledge, skills and character.”

Your degree journey will cover the knowledge, but the PPD units in your degree will help
you understand the skills and character elements! Throughout this module we will be
identifying and reflecting on these so that we can support you to be as competitive as
possible to realise your career aspirations!

You will draw from the activities which you have undertaken throughout this module,
through your self-awareness of your skills and behaviours and then your self-management

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of developing an action plan to ensure that when you come to apply for your aspirational
work placement/internship that you have put yourself in a competitive position to secure
this! Of course, you will also need to illustrate your great academic skills in the research,
referencing and presentation elements too.

ASSESSMENT TASK

To showcase what you have learnt, reflected upon and developed, your assessment is for
you to prepare and deliver a pitch presentation outlining your reflections on how you map
to your chosen work placement, internship position, a career progression role or a career
change role. You will need to present this as a pitch to persuade us that you would be
the perfect candidate for this position.

HERES THE IMPORTANT BIT: You develop no more than 6 slides to cover what you want to
say; not everything you say has to be on the slide in text. Think about using a range of
modes, e.g. verbal, text, images, videos, live showing of LinkedIn etc.

As a minimum we would expect to see the following in your pitch presentations:

 Outline of the position you are applying for, including what drew you to this;

 An outline of your research findings on the industry that the company sits within,
drawing from a range of credible academic sources;

 Reflection and discussion around your self awareness in your skills mapping related
to the position you are applying for; clear examples need to be shown of how you
know you have these skills, for example, work experience, volunteering, sports,
student rep, college opportunities etc;

 Reflection and discussion around your self awareness of the psychometrics and
other skills and behaviour surveys you undertook, showing how these illustrate a
good match to the job role you applied for;

 An outline of how you have developed your LinkedIn profile and CV to reflect the
necessary requirements for this job/industry.

 An outline of extra self-development activities that you have undertaken, e.g.,

networking, job fairs, guest speakers, LinkedIn Learning etc.;

 Discussion of the development plan you wrote from your analysis of your skills
audit, identifying challenges to your career aspirations. This should include either
SMART or HARD goals showing at least 1 x short term goal (end of L4), 1 x medium
term goal (end of University) and 1 x long term goal (first promotion);

 This is a pitch - so ensure you leave us with the final reasons as to why we should
choose you!

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  Your last slide should then be your bibliography using Harvard Referencing style.
You should also include Harvard referencing in-text on your slides too.

 For those on a refer only - please ensure you complete a small reflective section
of what you learnt from the feedback on your initial attempt.

Please note that there is only 1 assessment for this unit, which you will need to pass
otherwise risk not proceeding onto Level 5 or gaining your Honours degree. You will
have been supported through formative/summative assessment checkpoints. Activities are
interwoven throughout the module so it is vital to engage in all activities and ask
questions! In this way, you will have done most of the preparation for this assessment as
you go and not only given yourself the best chance for success on this unit, but also
enabling you to progress along the journey towards your aspirational role.

The intention is you use the knowledge and outputs from this assessment to assist you in
further job/placement/internship opportunities and you will build on this again on the PPD
unit at Level 6.

Assessment criteria

See Grademark table at the end

Learning Outcomes

This assessment will enable students to demonstrate in full or in part the learning
outcomes identified in the Module descriptors.

Late Submissions

Students are reminded that:

i. If this assessment is submitted late i.e. within 5 working days of the submission
deadline, the mark will be capped at 40% if a pass mark is achieved;
ii. If this assessment is submitted later than 5 working days after the submission
deadline, the work will be regarded as a non-submission and will be awarded a zero;
iii. If this assessment is being submitted as a referred piece of work then it must be
submitted by the deadline date; any Refer assessment submitted late will be
regarded as a non-submission and will be awarded a zero.

https://students.solent.ac.uk/official-documents/quality-management/academic-
handbook/2o-assessment-principles-regulations-temporary-amendments-for-covid-19-
contingency-plans.pdf

Extenuating Circumstances
The University’s Extenuating Circumstances procedure is in place if there are genuine
circumstances that may prevent a student submitting an assessment. If students are not

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'fit to study’, they can either request an extension to the submission deadline of 5 working
days or they can request to submit the assessment at the next opportunity (Defer). In
both instances students must submit an EC application with relevant evidence. If
accepted by the EC Panel there will be no academic penalty for late submission or non-
submission dependent on what is requested. Students are reminded that EC covers only
short term issues (20 working days) and that if they experience longer term matters that
impact on learning then they must contact the Student Hub for advice.

Please find a link to the EC policy below:

https://students.solent.ac.uk/official-documents/quality-management/academic-
handbook/2p-extenuating-circumstances.pdf

Academic Misconduct
Any submission must be students’ own work and, where facts or ideas have been used
from other sources, these sources must be appropriately referenced. The University’s
Academic Handbook includes the definitions of all practices that will be deemed to
constitute academic misconduct. Students should check this link before submitting their
work.

Procedures relating to student academic misconduct are given below:

https://students.solent.ac.uk/official-documents/quality-management/academic-
handbook/4l-student-academic-misconduct-procedure.pdf

Ethics Policy
The work being carried out by students must be in compliance with the Ethics Policy.
Where there is an ethical issue, as specified within the Ethics Policy, then students will
need an ethics release or an ethical approval prior to the start of the project.

The Ethics Policy is contained within Section 2S of the Academic Handbook:

https://staff.solent.ac.uk/official-documents/quality-management/academic-
handbook/2s-solent-university-ethics-policy.pdf

Grade marking
The University uses a letter grade scale for the marking of assessments. Unless students
have been specifically informed otherwise their marked assignment will be awarded a
letter grade. More detailed information on grade marking and the grade scale can be
found on the portal and in the Student Handbook.

https://students.solent.ac.uk/official-documents/quality-management/academic-
handbook/2o-annex-3-assessment-regulations-grade-marking-scale.docx

Guidance for online submission through Solent Online Learning (SOL)

http://learn.solent.ac.uk/onlinesubmission

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 Criteria: Pitch BFA437
Criteria A1 – A2 A3 – A4 B1 – B3 C1 – C3 D1 – D3 F1 – F3
Academic skills – Exemplary in all Excellent clear Comprehensive Satisfactory level of Partial but Very limited or no
Academic Content aspects. Creative evidence of evidence of evidence of insufficient evidence of
display of structure preparation and preparation and preparation and evidence of preparation and
 Industry research and design. No planning. No planning. Consistent planning. Largely
preparation and planning.
undertaken and spelling or grammar spelling or and accurate consistent and
errors and accurate grammatical errors. referencing. accurate planning. Some Errors/omissions in
interwoven into
presentation with well referencing Comprehensive and Comprehensive referencing. errors in referencing (or
referenced credible throughout. accurate range of industry Satisfactory range referencing. none). Very limited
sources Exemplary range of referencing. research. of industry Minimum range of or no range of
 Logical structure industry research. Excellent range of research. industry research. industry research.
 Creativity of industry research.
presentation of
information
 Spelling & Grammar
 Harvard Referencing
both in-text and in
bibliography
Self-Awareness Exceptional level of Excellent level of Good level of Satisfactory level of Limited level of Very limited/no
Demonstrate reflection and understanding in all understanding in all understanding in all understanding in all understanding in all level of
analysis aspects. Self- aspects. Excellent aspects. Self- aspects. Self- aspects. Self- understanding in all
awareness and skills Self-awareness and awareness and skills awareness and skills awareness and skills aspects. Self-
 Skills audit mapping skills mapping mapping mapping mapping awareness and skills
analysed and reflected demonstrated demonstrated demonstrated with demonstrated with demonstrated with mapping very
upon beyond any beyond very minor minor improvements some key some major limited or not
 Potential challenges improvement, very improvements, very only, good robust improvements improvements present, very
identified with a robust review of robust review of review of skills needed, generally required, limited limited or no review
development plan skills required with a skills required with required with a robust review of review of skills of skills required
including goals set range of barriers a range of barriers range of barriers skills required with required with a with a range of
 The range of extra presented along with presented along presented along a range of barriers range of barriers barriers presented
opportunities discussed exceptional with excellent with good presented along presented with a not being sufficient
development plan development plan development plan with a satisfactory limited or missing. Very
and goal actions. An and goal actions. An and goal actions. A development plan development plan limited/no
exceptional range of excellent range of good range of extra and goal actions. A and goal actions. A development plan
extra opportunities extra opportunities opportunities satisfactory range of limited range of and goal actions. A
discussed. discussed. discussed. extra opportunities extra opportunities limited/no range of
discussed. discussed. extra opportunities
discussed.

Management of self Exemplary LinkedIn Excellent LinkedIn Good LinkedIn Satisfactory Poor LinkedIn Little to no
Taking responsibility for your profile and CV profile and CV profile and CV LinkedIn profile and profile and CV evidence of
development relevant to the relevant to the relevant to the CV relevant to the relevant to the LinkedIn profile and

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 industry. industry. Excellent industry. Good industry. industry. Poor CV relevant to the
 Employability Outstanding pitching pitching skills pitching skills Satisfactory pitching pitching skills. industry. Little to
documents including skills against the against the position. against the position. skills. Limited articulation no pitching skills.
LinkedIn and CV both position. Highly Confident and Good articulation Satisfactory and ability to Inadequately
professional and comprehensive level and ability to articulation and respond to question articulation /
updated to be relevant
exemplary level of of articulation and respond to ability to respond to demonstrating some demonstrating some
to specific industry articulation and detailed level of questions, questions knowledge of the confusion / poor
 Pitching skills were well knowledge of knowledge of demonstrating good demonstrating subject area. level of knowledge
matched to the position subject area. subject area. level of knowledge appropriate level of of the subject area.
applying for of subject area. knowledge of
 Knowledge and handling subject area.
of Q+A

Employer ready! Exceptional ability Excellent ability of Good ability of Satisfactory ability Poor ability of Limited/no ability
Demonstration of of persuasion and persuasion and persuasion and of persuasion and persuasion and of persuasion and
Professional skills communication communication communication communication communication communication
skills, with skills, with excellent skills, with good skills, with skills, with poor skills, with
 Audience Engagement exceptional audience audience satisfactory audience limited/no audience
 Clear Communication audience engagement. No engagement. audience engagement. Over engagement.
 Persuasive argument engagement. No reliance on que No/limited reliance engagement. Some reliance on que Complete over
through the pitch reliance on que cards and excellent on que cards and reliance on que cards and limited reliance on que
 Professional look of cards and evidence evidence of good evidence of cards and evidence of cards and
slides and in personal of preparation and preparation and preparation and satisfactory preparation and limited/no evidence
presentation style exceptional confidence in confidence in evidence of confidence in of preparation
confidence in delivery with delivery with preparation and delivery with poor and /or confidence
delivery with excellent excellent confidence in professional style. in delivery with very
exemplary professional style. professional style. delivery with poor professional
professional style. satisfactory style.
professional style.

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