Institutional research into generic skills and graduate attributes: Constraints and dilemmas

This paper will identify and explore some of the dilemmas arising from the constraints affecting institutional research in the area of generic skills and graduate attributes. A study currently in progress at Griffith University - the Griffith Graduate Project (Stage 4) - will be used to illustrate these dilemmas. Earlier stages of the Griffith Graduate Project focused on the implementation and articulation of generic skills and abilities in undergraduate degree programs. Stage 4, however, moves outside the University to explore the perceptions of graduates from three Schools and a sample of employers - perceptions of the different contributions of three different learning contexts (university, university work placements, and employment after graduation) to the development of their generic skills and abilities. The design and conduct of the project is based on three main assumptions. The first is that graduates who have the opportunity to experience the workplace environment as a structured component of their undergraduate degrees are better prepared for post-graduation employment and lifelong learning than those who do not. The second is that universities have a responsibility to prepare graduates for the workplace, and that one way they can do this is to develop students' generic skills in a structured way throughout their undergraduate degree programs. The third is that workplace employers, either those engaging students on work placements or those appointing graduates as paid employees, have a responsibility, equal to that of the universities, to enssure that their transition to the workplace is as smooth as it can be and that their learning at work is characterised by continual (and structured) critical reflection. Some of the difficulties encountered by the project team in conducting this research within the various contexts of the major stakeholders (the University, the employers and the graduates) have created some interesting constraints and dilemmas, which will be outlined in this paper.