Major influences on the teaching and assessment of graduate attributes

Abstract

Efforts to systematically integrate graduate attributes across university curricula have relied on academic staff acceptance and ability to translate top-down policy into teaching practice. The literature and anecdotal reports over the past two decades show limited success in the area using this approach. Why is this so? Teaching staff across 16 Australian universities were surveyed, as part of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council-funded grant, regarding their beliefs about graduate attributes and their willingness and confidence to teach and assess them. The study found that although 73% of academic staff surveyed believed graduate attributes were important, there was a substantial difference between beliefs and actual emphasis reported in practice. We consider the major influences on the teaching and assessment of graduate attributes, the implications for policy development and implementation, and propose a rethink in relation to how to work towards improved graduate attribute outcomes in universities.

Keywords:

• assessment
• beliefs
• curriculum
• graduate attributes
• teaching

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to the 1064 academic staff who completed the online survey and the contact staff in the 16 universities who participated in the project – Charles Darwin University, CQUniversity, Curtin University, Griffith University, La Trobe University, Murdoch University, RMIT University, Southern Cross University, Swinburne University, The University of New South Wales, University of New England, University of the Sunshine Coast, University of South Australia, University of Southern Queensland, The University of Queensland and University of Wollongong. We also sincerely acknowledge our colleagues on the project: Prof Alex Radloff (formerly CQUniversity), Anne Lawson (CQUniversity), Michelle Scoufis (University of Sydney), Dr Helen Dalton (University of New South Wales), Prof Jan Thomas and Dr Antonia Girardi (Murdoch University). Special thanks to Dr Antonia Girardi and Dr Helen Dalton for their work on the statistical analysis.

Support for the original work was provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations project GI7-638 Increasing institutional success in the integration and assessment of graduate attributes across the disciplines by identifying academic staff beliefs about graduate attributes (see http://www.altc.edu.au/project-b-factor-understanding-academic-cqu-2007). We would like to especially acknowledge the ALTC for their support.