Generic graduate attributes : a research based framework for a shared vision

For many years universities around the world have sought to articulate the nature of the education they offer to their students and their contribution to society through a description of the generic qualities and skills their graduates possess. However, universities' endeavors to describe and foster the development of generic attributes of graduates are characterised by a plurality of view-points and approaches and, despite extensive funding in some quarters, have met with limited success. Recent research (Barrie 2002) that has revisited the rhetoric of institutional claims of 'generic graduate attributes' has shown that Australian university teachers charged with the responsibility of developing students' generic graduate attributes, do not share a common understanding of either the nature of these outcomes, or the teaching and learning processes that might facilitate the development of these outcomes. Instead academics hold qualitatively different conceptions of the phenomenon of graduate attributes. This paper considers how the qualitatively different conceptions of graduate attributes identified in this research have been applied to the challenge of revising a university's statement of graduate attributes. First we outline the key findings of the research. We then describe how the University's revision of its policy statement has built upon this research. In particular, we focus on the implications of the variation in the relationship between discipline knowledge and generic attributes. This was a key feature of the qualitative variation in understandings identified in the research. This issue is expanded upon by means of a detailed discussion of how one discipline, Engineering, has contextualised and interpreted the shared policy framework based on this research.