Core Graduate Attributes

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Policy

Download the Policy from the Central Policy Register.

Purpose of the policy

The purpose of the Core Graduate Attributes policy is to:

• prepare students for lifelong learning in the contexts of professional practice, scholarship and citizenship
• improve the employment outcomes for graduates
• make students more attractive to employers.

This policy applies to Higher Education only although TAFE programs that articulate into degree programs with credit need to also be mindful of CGAs.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Why can't we just introduce a compulsory subject that covers the CGAs? 

The University has endorsed a "curriculum integration" approach to the development of the CGA s. The reasons for this are: 

2. Surely it's enough to have students practise these attributes in class activities. Why do we have to assess them? 

Most of us are aware that students use assessment as an indication of what is centrally important for their learning. It is for this reason that CGA s do need to be assessed. Explicit assessment of a CGA sends a message to students that this aspect of their work is important. If a CGA is not assessed: 

• Many students will not take it seriously (and one of the central aims of the CGA process is to get students to take these skills more seriously) 
• Many students will find ways to avoid it, thus defeating the whole purpose of introducing these CGAs into curriculum 
• We have no way of gauging whether the learning activities we set for students are successful in developing the attributes (see Biggs, 1999

3. What are the benefits of putting work into this CGA process?

Underlying the CGA process is the aim of developing students' skills over time by beginning with less demanding and more familiar tasks which then gradually become more complex. 

This kind of "staging" is intended to maximise the learning that will occur naturally as students build on previous learning, rather than being confronted with difficult and unfamiliar tasks without adequate preparation. 

Ensuring that this gradual progression in fact occurs, and identifying and remedying gaps and inconsistencies, is the aim of the mapping process. The result of the process should be a clear picture of how each course currently develops the attributes. It should enable us to build on what we already do well, and to make significant improvements where necessary through relatively small changes. 

Thus it is a way of improving our overall development of the skills and understandings involved while minimising the extra time and expertise required to teach students who are not prepared for a task.

4. Where does subject content fit into this? 

The discipline knowledge and understandings that students need are central to the approach taken at VU. The University has decided that the CGA's must be developed in the context of the disciplines , not as a set of "skills" conceptualised as separate from knowledge and understanding. 

Problem solving, for example, cannot be undertaken without a problem and a solution based on knowledge and understanding; communication cannot occur without knowledge or understanding that is communicated; critical thinking must be about something. Conversely, we cannot - and usually do not - teach and assess knowledge and understanding without asking students to apply them to something (a "problem") and/or to communicate about them in an analytical and critical manner.

However an exclusive focus on developing knowledge and understanding - "content" - may blind us to the need to develop students' ability to use that "content". Assessment of CGA's involves asking ourselves what we want students to be able to do with that "content" they are learning, and signalling to them that we are also concerned about that. 

In addition, there may be areas of "content" that will be less necessary if students have good skills as a result of the CGA process. Many employers tell us that they prefer students who can communicate well and can locate and understand the information they need, rather than those without such skills who have simply mastered a lot of "facts".

Professional Development

Check the Staff College Online Booking System for forthcoming workshops and professional develepment activities in this policy area.

Links / Resources / References

Useful resources

The following materials have been prepared to assist VU staff in the process of implementation of the CGAs.  They represent possible approaches to the CGAs; they do not form part of the University's CGA policy, so they may be used or adapted at the discretion of course teams.  Comments on their usefulness are welcome!

Mapping Core Graduate Attributes: 

1. Subject Coordinator Kit .  This kit was prepared to assist those involved in mapping individual subjects.  It contains:

•  Introduction to the VU Core Graduate Attributes

•  VU Generic CGA Criteria

•  Instructions on completing the subject report form

•  Subject report form

NB. The Subject Coordinator Kit is a later, and we hope more useful, version of the Subject/Task Matrix .

2. Course Coordinator Kit .  This kit was prepared for Course Coordinators and/or Course Teams who are putting together information from Subject Coordinators to prepare Course Reports.  The kit contains:

•  Introduction to the VU Core Graduate Attributes

•  VU Generic CGA Criteria

•  Instructions on completing the course report form

•  Course report form

NB. The Course Coordinator Kit is a later, and we hope more useful, version of the Course Report Matrix in the Implementation Plan.   We recommend it be used instead of the Course Report Matrix.

Additional Guidelines for Mapping Assessment Tasks .  These guidelines were designed to assist staff to think in more detail about the sorts of activities that might be used at each of the three CGA levels. 

Capstone Task

Further references

Graduate Employment

AC Nielsen Research Services, 2000, Employer Satisfaction with Graduate Skills,   Research Report 99/7

Executive Summary at http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/eippubs/EIP99-7/execsum99_7.htm

Full report at http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/eippubs/eip99-7/eip99_7pdf.pdf  

Boyer's Scholarships

Candy P C. (2000) Knowledge navigators and lifelong learners: producing graduates for the information society. Higher Education Research & Development. 19 : 261-77.

CGAs at other Australian Universities

University of South Australia

http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/gradquals/index.htm

University of Western Sydney

http://cea.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf2000/scoufis.html

Murdoch University

http://www.tlc.murdoch.edu.au/gradatt/tools.html

University of Wollongong

http://www.uow.edu.au/about/teaching/attributes.html

Assessment in HE (general)

Biggs, J. (1999). Teaching for Quality Learning at University . Buckingham , UK , Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

Biggs provides a very useful way of conceptualising the links between learning objectives, learning activities and assessment tasks, from the perspective of the learner.  He calls this Constructive Alignment.  

Cross, M. and T. Angelo (1996). Classroom Assessment Techniques , Jossey-Bass.

Nightingale, P. et al (1996). Assessing Learning in Universities . Sydney, University of New South Wales Press.

For a summary of Biggs's SOLO Taxonomy - a framework for setting increasingly complex learning objectives (and thus assessment tasks) - see:

http://www.tlc.murdoch.edu.au/gradatt/objectives.html

A variety of useful material put together by the Australian Universities Teaching Committee assessment project, conducted by the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at Melbourne University , can be found at:

http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning/index.html

The website of the Learning and Teaching Support Network in the UK has material on assessment:

http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp?id=16892

Assessing NESB students 

http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning/03/intstaff.html

Victoria University 's Core Graduate Attributes

1. Problem Solving

2. Using Information 

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has done a lot of work on Information Literacy in the curriculum.  A couple of parts of the QUT site are particularly useful.

QUT Library framework for embedding Information Literacy into the Curriculum:

http://www.library.qut.edu.au/ilfs/

QUT information on Information Literacy for academics:

http://www.library.qut.edu.au/academics/

3. Communication

4. Working as a Professional

Assessing Group work

See the following websites for useful information on assessing group work.

http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning/03/group.html

http://www.iml.uts.edu.au/learnteach/groupwork/index.html

Contact your policy champion

For more information contact Leoni Arandez on ext. 8379.

To obtain an overview of currently approved teaching and learning policies, follow the links in the Policy Table.