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Personal Skills – Quality Graduates: staff and student perceptions of personal skills development in higher education in the UK.

Standing Conference on Educational Development (SCED) paper 69 1992.

This SCED Publication consists of two complementary papers. Both discuss aspects of personal skills and qualities developed by students on HE courses in the UK.

The first paper, by Clare Nankivell and Michael Shoolbred, presents the results of a large-scale survey of HE subject teacher’s attitudes to the teaching of personal skills. The research was conducted by a small team over two years and was funded by a range of organisations including the Training Agency, IBM, BP, Birmingham Polytechnic and the Oldham Foundation. The paper discusses the results of a survey of 3500 subject teachers and presents a number of recommendations. The survey looked at:

  • What Teaching was being done
  • How the teaching was being done
  • What could be done to improve it's effectiveness

In contrast, the second paper by Sue Drew presents results of a small-scale but in-depth study. The research was based on termly interviews with students over the three years of their course at Sheffield City Polytechnic.

The writer presents a qualitative account of student perceptions of their developing personal skills and qualities throughout their course and what helped in this development. From this she proposes a number of elements in course design and delivery which are likely to support such development.

These papers complement each other as the first focuses on staff attitudes towards personal skills and the second on student perceptions. The two studies produced interestingly different definitions of personal skills and qualities as a result of the different approaches employed. This is to be expected given that this is an area with notoriously "soft" terminology.

Both papers, then, describe research in the same area but with different emphases and from different perspectives. They share the belief that the development of personal skills in HE courses is of immense value both to students on their courses and in their subsequent careers and lives.

Authors:
Sue Drew, M. Clare Nankivell and Michael Shoolbred.