ENHANCING STUDENT EMPLOYABILITY:

ENHANCING STUDENT EMPLOYABILITY:
Higher Education and Workforce Development

Ninth Quality in Higher Education International Seminar in collaboration with ESECT and The Independent. Birmingham 27th-28th January 2005


Developing an Employability Framework: an institutional approach

Simon Brown - Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Science
Sue Drew - Learning and Teaching Institute
Sheffield Hallam University

Abstract
Sheffield Hallam has students' employability at the heart of its 'vision and values'. It has many years experience in embedding aspects of employability in the curriculum and a culture in which practice forms a basis for policy. In 2001 a cross University employability working party developed a definition of employability, recommending the creation of a University employability framework. In 2003 this framework was developed (approved by Academic Board, March 2004). It makes explicit the curriculum features that, when delivered in an integrated way, enhance student employability. These features incorporate existing policies and practices. The session will explore both the framework and the processes leading to its development.

1 Introduction

Employability is key to the Higher Education agenda. Recent employability conferences (ESECT 2003; SEDA 2004) and research (Harvey et al 2002) indicate that good practice is often seen as embedding one or two employability features only. Our aim in developing an Employability Framework for Sheffield Hallam University was, rather, to take an holistic approach. We wished to enhance the employability of all students by the integrated embedding, throughout courses, of a comprehensive set of features.

‘Increasing the employability of our students’ is a strategic objective of Sheffield Hallam’s Vision and Values (2004). Sheffield Hallam has always had a focus on employment since its inception as a Polytechnic in the 1960s. Our Employability Framework defines employability and specifies 7 essential and two additional curriculum features that should be present in courses if they are to enhance students' employability.

2 The principles underpinning the Employability Framework

Employability definitions are on a continuum from those related to job acquisition (First Destinations) to those related to student attributes and continual personal development (the Enhancing Student Employability Co-ordination Team's definition, ESECT 2002). Our definition (at the ESECT end) focuses on the enhancement of lifelong employability, reflecting research on the graduate attributes sought by employers: intelligent, flexible, self-aware lifelong learners with communication, interactive and team working skills, who add value to and transform organisations.

We believe that the way to have maximum impact on students' employability is via the integrated embedding of aspects likely to support that employability throughout courses by course teams. This:
· demonstrates commitment to and valuing of employability (Harvey et al 1999, 2001, 2002)
· encourages student engagement (Drew, 2001)
· supports the transfer of learning (Neath, 1998, Lave and Wenger, 1991) - this is further explored in section 4 below 'The Employability Framework'
· supports the widening participation agenda by ensuring equity of provision and engagement with a diverse student population (CHERI, 2002; Morey et al, 2003, HEFCE 1997; Forsyth and Furlong, 2003)
· integrates course and central employability provision (Harvey et al, 2002)
· ensures the development of employer contacts and employability resources (Harvey et al 1999, 2001, 2002)
· ensures that quality processes are applied.

It is our view that add-on modules or focussing on selected aspects of employability cannot address all the above.

We define 'embedding' in the following way: there are learning outcomes (LOs) relating to all the Employability Framework features, within modules and through all programme levels; there are learning and teaching methods that support those LOs; those LOs are validly assessed, with assessment criteria and feedback enabling the improvement of employability attributes. We define 'integration' as interrelating and aligning all the Employability Framework features (Biggs, 2003), for example a course might use Personal Development Planning (PDP) or work experience as a vehicle to pull together all those features.

3 The history of employability at Sheffield Hallam

The Employability Framework pulls together curriculum elements that have been iteratively developed within the University (and within its predecessor Sheffield City Polytechnic) since the 1960s. This has both led to extensive good practice in relation to these elements and also to the development of an enabling infrastructure.

Figure 1: Evolution of the infrastructure: the development of the Employability Framework

3.1 The development of good practice. Examples

Sheffield Hallam University has always been heavily involved in sandwich education and over the years good practice has developed in preparing students for placement, supporting them through it and assessing it. Gradually, a wider range of types of work experience have emerged. Courses focussing on health or education, for example, have periods of professional practice. Since the early 1990s students have been able, via Independent Study Modules, to gain academic credit for learning from voluntary work, and in recent years modules have been developed allowing students to gain credit for learning from part-time work. In 2001, as part of an overarching review of academic structures, a 'Learning from Work' policy formalised what was existing good practice and reflected the QAA Code of Practice 'Placement learning' (QAA 2004), and in 2003 guidelines for the accreditation of learning from work were developed.

The University has been a national leader in integrating Key Skills in the curriculum since the instigation of its Personal Skills and Qualities Project in 1987. By the early 1990s, Key Skills were embedded in all first year undergraduate courses and by the end of the decade they were extensively embedded in subsequent years. In 2001 University policy required that Key Skills be embedded in all courses at all levels (undergraduate and postgraduate), and that they be progressively developed. This policy was supported by the development of a set of generic Learning Outcomes including Key Skills, forming part of the Academic Framework and complying with the National Qualifications Framework for HE (QAA 2004).

Contemporaneously with the beginning of Key Skills developments, in 1987 the Personal Skills and Qualities project began work on the development of PDP, this being furthered in the early 1990s by the Enterprise in HE initiative, which aimed to extend PDP to all University Schools. There was highly innovative work, for example a scheme in Engineering where students gained final year credit (approved by the professional body) for presentation of a portfolio demonstrating professional development.

3.2 The development of the infrastructure. Examples.

Since the 1980s the University's Careers Service has had a focus on Careers Education and on working to embed this in the curriculum. The QAA Code of Practice 'Career education, information and guidance' provided an impetus for the creation in 2000/1 of a University working party to explore its implementation. This working party both developed a University definition of employability and also advocated the development of a Framework.

The Personal Skills and Qualities Project was instigated in 1987 by two careers advisers. In the early 1990s the Project was subsumed into the new Learning and Teaching Institute (LTI). The LTI has provided central support for the development of employability aspects, for example: the Learning from Work forum is convened jointly by the LTI and Careers Service; the University's extensive Key Skills resources (published and used in UK HE and internationally) have been developed by the LTI.

The LTI has led on the development of the University's LTA strategy and it supports that strategy by working with the University's Faculties. Over recent years strong LTA structures have developed, with the formation of four new Faculties in September 2004 providing an opportunity to formalise these structures. Each Faculty has a Head of LTA and a number of LTA coordinators. An LTA coordination group brings together LTA staff from across the Faculties with staff from the LTI and other key central departments (eg Learning Centre, Registry, estates). The LTI works closely with Registry to ensure that course planning and quality processes encourage good practice in learning, teaching and assessment, for example jointly developing the University's templates for programme specifications and module descriptions. The LTI has led on the roll-out of the University's Virtual Learning Environment, and Sheffield Hallam is a major user of 'Blackboard', the impact of which has been extensively evaluated (Aspden et al., 2003; Aspden & Helm 2004). 1321 modules have active sites and 23,408 students are enrolled as users (October 2004).
A focus on enterprise is at the very top level of our Vision and Values. 'Enabling our students and staff to meet the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow's world through educational excellence and enterprise' (Sheffield Hallam 2004). The University had Enterprise in Higher Education funding in the early 1990s, and in 2000 a new central focus was created in the form of the Enterprise Centre, funded by HEROBAC and institutional resources. The Centre provides a focus for external relations, has been involved in developing the Employability Framework, has key membership of the Learning from Work forum and since 2003 has led on embedding enterprise in the curriculum.
Student Volunteering is both intra and extra curricular. Hallam Volunteering is led by the Students Union and has had a boost in recent years from the Higher Education Active Community Fund. Students can obtain a Hallam Award from the Student's Union in recognition of their achievement and volunteering activities also form the basis for the Independent Study Modules referred to above.
4 The Employability Framework

As the above brief review of its history indicates, Sheffield Hallam has a strong reputation for separate features of employability (eg LfW; Key Skills) and also has a strong infrastructure to support this. As our 'history' suggests, policy has usually followed practice (eg the Key Skills policy formalised existing practice). The Employability Framework (approved March 2004) advocates pulling together such features to maximise impact on students. It is based on the following definition from the internal Employability Working Party:

'enabling students to acquire the knowledge, personal and professional skills and encouraging the attitudes that will support their future development and employment’[1] (Sheffield Hallam, 2002).

We see ‘employment’ as referring to a wide range of potential work activities: paid employment; self employment; creative and artistic work; work in or for the community; family or domestic responsibilities; other lifestyle choices.

The Employability Framework draws on the literature on constructivism and on the work of Biggs (2003) who suggests that courses with elements that are clearly aligned with each other are most effective in helping students create meaning (Biggs, 2003). It draws the literature on experiential learning (Kolb, 1984), on the nature of skilled behaviour (Elliot 1991), on reflective practice (Schon, 1987), and on Lave & Wenger's work (1991) that highlights the ‘situated’ (ie context dependent) nature of learning. The critical concepts underpinning employability in HE are transformation, the enhancing and empowering of students through knowledge and attribute acquisition, and the transfer of this to other contexts. Our Employability Framework is underpinned by a distillation of theoretical work about transfer (Thorndike, 1906; Pea,1989; Detterman and Sternberg, 1993; Neath, 1998) and transformation (Harvey & Knight,1996; Astin, 1985), mediated by our own development work, evaluations and research.

The literature indicates that transfer is not automatic, but that it is dependent on context (happening more readily within rather than across ‘domains’, eg team skills used on the sports field may transfer more readily between sports than into business contexts) and on ‘skills of transfer’ (being able to analyse contexts, see connections and adapt performance). The essential features of our Framework, aligned and integrated, address both transformation and transfer: the development of skills required to acquire and apply knowledge; their use in contexts mirroring external settings; the development of ‘skills of transfer’ (reflection on using knowledge and skills between contexts; reflection on own performance and action planning in Personal Development Planning; career management skills); the ability to autonomously adapt to situations. These are summarised in the Employability Framework.

Framework features seen as essential for all courses
1. Progressive development of autonomy.
2. Skills development (intellectual; subject; professional; Key Skills).
3. Personal Development Planning (PDP).
4. Inclusion of activities reflecting external environments.
5. Reflection on the use of knowledge and skills between contexts.
6. The development of career management skills.
7. Engagement with learning from work (LfW).

Additional features that may be appropriate, depending on the nature of the course
8. Preparation for professions.
9. Engagement with enterprise.

As section 3 above indicates, the Framework was informed by existing University policies and frameworks. It aims to provide guidance without prescribing how the features are to be implemented, allowing for innovation and ownership (the development team were conscious of the difficult balance here).

5 Getting the Employability Framework agreed: the process

As indicated above, in 2002 a cross University Employability Working Party reported, providing a broad, inclusive definition of employability and recommending a Framework. In 2003 the LTI decided, in response to the national agenda, to refocus on employability through, initially, a one-year plan to raise awareness of employability practice and issues across the University. At an initial event, a 'mini-conference' in September 2003 attended by over 50 staff, the suggestion was made that we submit a proposal for a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning as part of a strategy to 'spearhead' and re-energise employability. The LTI's activities and this suggestion gave a new impetus to the Framework recommendation. A small group of people with complementary interests in employability began work on developing a Framework: Sue Drew of the LTI (interests in Key Skills and learning from work); Simon Brown, secondee to the Enterprise Centre; Pat Quinn, Head of Careers; Lee Harvey (who has an international reputation for research into employability), Head of the University's Centre for Research and Evaluation. The group consulted widely (eg via the Learning from Work forum, LTA networks, with Registry) and a version was submitted to Academic Development Committee (the Head of the LTI is a member). Following amendments, the paper was presented to and approved by Academic Board in March 2004.

So, in summary, the factors enabling the Framework's development were:
· existing relevant practice and policies
· a steer from a University working party
· a group of committed individuals with complementary interests and with significant central roles in the institution (and nationally - Pat Quinn is involved in AGCAS and Lee Harvey is deputy director of ESECT)
· access by those individuals to existing network and lines of communication
· access to central high level University committees
· the incentive of a CETL proposal
· resonance with the University's direction - we were pushing against an open door.

6 What next?

We now have an Employability Framework that relates to existing policies and to the Academic Framework, approved by Academic Board and therefore required in course planning.

Recent activities have included rewriting the University's programme specification to ensure it aligns with the Framework (a major mechanism to ensure engagement). The LTI is in the process of developing with Registry guidance for course planners that link to University policies and Frameworks, including the Employability Framework. We have a series of Employability Roadshows planned, one per Faculty, to inform staff of the Framework and key individuals have been invited (eg LTA and quality co-ordinators, those involved currently in course planning, subject heads etc). Ongoing work in ensuring that course planners account for the Framework will be the responsibility of Faculty LTA Heads, supported by central departments.

CRE has already conducted a survey of course leaders to identify existing practice against the Framework features and this has provided an overview of areas that are strengths across the University and areas in need to development (Bowers-Brown et al 2004), and this information can feed into staff development activities. We plan to repeat the survey (the questionnaire is available as part of the ESECT toolkit, ESECT 2004) to identify progress. Our work on the CETL bid has led to the development of criteria against which we can evaluated how far courses are successful in embedding and integrating employability enhancement.

The CETL bidding process was invaluable. It acted as a spur to survey practice and to develop criteria for excellence and it moved the agenda on more speedily. It confirmed for us the importance of our holistic approach and this has led to our increased involvement in national events (this conference is an example). If we are successful in the CETL bid it will provide a premium to help us build on excellent practice in courses already fully embedding and integrating all the features, to further develop excellence and to learn from and share practice with colleagues in UK HE.

We can already see evidence of the impact of the Framework and associated awareness raising activities within the University. Faculty LTA Heads have employability firmly on their agendas (one Faculty has already appointed employability coordinators). Registry staff are concerned to ensure that quality systems adequately reflect the Framework. Staff are debating the Framework and how, or if, it differs from our traditional, more implicit focus on vocationalism.