ESRC
ECONOMIC
& SOCIAL
RESEARCH
COUNCIL

LEARNING SOCIETY
PROGRAMME

PRINCIPAL RESEARCHERS

Professor Neville Bennett
Co-Director

Elisabeth Dunne
Co-Director

Clive Carré
Research Fellow

University of Exeter

CONTACT
ADDRESS

Professor Neville Bennett
School of Education
University of Exeter
Heavitree Road
Exeter  EX1 2LU
Tel:  01392 264796
Fax:  01392 264792
Email: S.N.Bennett@exeter.ac.uk

Elisabeth Dunne
Staff Development Unit
University of Exeter
Amory Building
Rennes Drive
Exeter  EX4 4RJ
Tel:  0139 26510
Email: E.J.Dunne@exeter.ac.uk

Duration
30 Months

DEVELOPING SKILLS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
AND EMPLOYMENT

OBJECTIVES

The overarching aim of the study was to gain enhanced understandings of the acquisition and development of generic skills in higher education (HE) and employment. The objectives were to ascertain:
	university teachers’ understandings of their role, purposes and priorities, and how those relate to practice;
	what generic skills are taught, the approaches and the outcomes, in both university and employment settings;
	student conceptions of teaching and learning in HE, including attitudes towards the acquisition of generic skills;
	employers’ perspectives on the need for generic skills in different types of employment;
	the generic skills used, for what purposes and in what contexts, during the first years of graduate employment.

APPROACH
The study was completed in two stages.  The first was designed to map the field by providing a clarification of contemporary policies, practices, priorities, conceptions and expectations either side of the interface between HE and employment.  The second stage evaluated employer-led initiatives in skills development in HE.

The HE data for the first stage were acquired by documentary analysis, interview and observation of 32 lecturers, and their students, in 16 departments in four institutions.  In the employment sector a follow-up study of 24 early career graduates was supplemented by interviews with the Human Resource Directors of large national and multi-national companies.  The data for the second stage were acquired from evaluations of two employer-led initiatives - the Team Development Programme funded by BP, and the Shell Technology Enterprise Programme on student work experience.

MAIN FINDINGS
HE:
Confusion surrounds the notions of ‘key’ or ‘generic’ skills in HE - the Dearing Report on HE had emphasised their importance but lacked a theoretical base from which to clear up the confusion.  A model of generic skills was therefore devised, together with a model of course provision, which differentiated generic skills, disciplinary skills and substantive knowledge, to provide a more coherent conceptualisation of the different types of skill.

The data on university teachers’ conceptions of key and generic skills indicated that they lacked a coherent, explicit theory of learning, and that their stated beliefs were not a good predictor of practice.  This was partly a consequence of contextual constraints outside their individual control, such as the effect of the Research Assessment Exercise, and departmental and institutional policies regarding curriculum priorities, delivery and assessment.

Generic skills were almost always taught to provide a foundation for effective learning in HE rather than preparation for employment.  While such skills could be taught with rigour there was a common reluctance to assess them.  This was in part due to lack of experience in such assessment, and partly to inflexible policies of departments and institutions on assessment.  Ironically the practice was in direct conflict with student perceptions.  When skills remain embedded and implicit within disciplinary study, and are not assessed, students are least likely either to recognise or be interested in them.

Programmes which were initiated by employers - although highly valued by participants - were often hampered by resistance among academics to development and change, and by administrative systems that do not always support or facilitate innovations.

Employment:

Situational influences were also evident in employment settings.  Employers broadly agreed on their skills priorities.  The necessary skills used by graduate employees, however, and the way that they were defined, depended crucially on the characteristics of the work.  Demand for communication skills and the nature of such skills, for instance, varied markedly across work and task contexts.

Broad general skill descriptors like ‘communication ‘are thus far too ambiguous to be of value either for the purposes of recruitment or training.

The most important sources of employee learning derived from the challenges of the work itself and from interactions with others in the workplace.  For example, graduate employees identified that the major skill to be learned was to ‘fit in’.  This meant adapting to cultural expectations and organisational pressures, and learning the ‘language of the job’, and such differences in context and demand affected the skills used.

Training opportunities for graduates varied enormously.  Most courses did not take into account existing trainee skills.  There was little or no formal assessment of what had been learned in training.  Managers simply assumed that training had been effective.  Training for line managers or mentors on assessing generic skills was lacking.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

1.	Employers and policy makers alike have been seduced by the rhetoric about key/generic skills, with scant consideration of their definition, characteristics, transferability or utility.  Future discourse must therefore be grounded in theoretical underpinnings of skills and their relationship to domain specific knowledge and disciplinary skills.

2.	It is assumed that the evident lack of a common language of skills between HE and employers will be improved by closer links and collaborations with business, particularly in the provision of work-based learning opportunities.  However, in practice there is considerable variation in the effectiveness and acceptability of these programmes.  Future policy should recognise that the best schemes are jointly planned, incorporate close guidance of experiences, and continued joint support by both workplace and university supervisors.

3. 	If HE is to play a full part in raising the level of generic skills then a continuing process of training and professional development will be required.  Although the DfEE is currently providing funding for a host of development projects, it is unclear how useful these will be.  There is also little indication that the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education has any clear strategy for generic skills teaching.  In the absence of coherent central policy initiatives in the training of staff institutions themselves must begin to take on the role of primary developer and provider.  In taking this role there is a need for unambiguous central and departmental policies on the development of generic skills, incorporating monitoring and flexible assessment regulations.  For many university teachers there will also have to be a shift in beliefs as a necessary prerequisite of training, a shift that for some would be more palatable if more closely linked to career prospects.

4.	Improving the nature and quality of the language of skills, of training, and of institutional policy making are all essential, but all require an ingredient which to date has been sadly lacking - a defensible theory of learning. Without a theoretical understanding of how students and graduate employees learn, of how the setting or context mediates what and how they learn, of institutional and organisational change, and crucially, of what is to be learned, the Dearing prescriptions for the role of higher education in economic development, and in lifelong learning, will simply not be realised.

KEY PUBLICATIONS

Bennett, N., Dunne, E. and Carré, C. (1999) ‘Patterns of core and generic skill provision in higher education’, Higher Education, 37, 1. 71-93
Bennett, N., Dunne, E. and Carré, C. (2000 Feb) Developing Skills in Higher Education and Employment. Buckingham: Open University Press/Society for Research in Higher Education
Dunne, E., Bennett, N. and Carré, C. (1997) ‘Higher Education: Core skills in a learning society’ Journal of Education Policy, 12, 6, 511-525
Dunne. E. (ed) (1999) The Learning Society: International Perspectives on Core Skills in Higher Education, London: Kogan Page