nttu/bcu student centred employability · 3 1. introduction the nttu/bcu employability framework...
TRANSCRIPT
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NTTU/BCU Student Centred Employability #NTTUBCUemployability
Framework Tool
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Contents
Table of Contents
Pages
1. Introduction to the framework 3
2. Working with the framework 4
3. The NTTU/BCU Employability FRAMEWORK TOOL 6 3.1 Contexts for student centred employability: developing the institutional environment 6 3.2 Working for change 15 3.2.1 Developing Reflective Practice: Key issues and debate 15 3.2.2 Mentoring and Coaching: Key issues and debates 22
3.2.3 Vocational Pedagogies - Key issues and debates 29
3.2.4 Student Centred Assessment: Key issues and debates 35
Appendix 1 Action Planning Template
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1. Introduction
The NTTU/BCU Employability framework builds on work undertaken for a British Council Vietnam funded project Improving employability outcomes through student-centred approaches to learning. This project brought together colleagues from Birmingham City University (BCU) in Birmingham, UK and Nguyen Tat Thanh University (NTTU) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to achieve a number of objectives:-
Build innovative models of student-centred vocational pedagogy that will enable students (undergraduate and post-graduate/professional) to gain the skills, values and attitudes they need to be successful in the workplace;
Develop approaches to student peer and self-assessment and review that promote the acquisition of graduate attributes for employability;
Support positive outcomes for students by enabling staff to develop their own skills as mentors and coaches and train and support workplace mentors to provide effective support to students in placement or practice settings;
Embed approaches to curriculum design and planning that ensure that learning outcomes help to structure student learning effectively;
Facilitate knowledge exchange and production of new knowledge about student and graduate employability through collaborative research activities and productive links with employers and the world of work;
Create a new professional learning community for staff and students with an international focus;
Secure opportunities for staff and student exchanges – both real and virtual.
The project is concerned with improving the employability outcomes of undergraduate and postgraduate students following professionally orientated programmes of study in higher education contexts in Vietnam and the UK. The project brings together university leaders, researchers, teachers, students and professional services and support staff from two modern, vocationally focused higher educational institutions to develop new, innovative approaches to curriculum design, pedagogy, workplace learning, mentoring and coaching and assessment. The priority of the project is student-centred approaches to learning that ensure that students become independent, autonomous learners who have the motivation, skills and aptitudes to secure graduate level employment on graduation and to build meaningful, fulfilling careers that contribute to both their own economic, social and personal well-being and the broader prosperity of the two countries in which the partner institutions are located.
The project team identified four priority focus areas: Developing Reflective Practice; Vocational Pedagogies for Employability; Teaching, mentoring and coaching for employability; Designing learning to support student-centred assessment.
The project aimed to deliver a significant number of tangible and highly practical complementary outputs. An online resource that documents the work of the project and makes all related resources available to the wider international higher education community on an open access, free to download basis is available at https://studentcentredemployability.wordpress.com/ and social media case studies providing both ‘live coverage’ of work in progress and a legacy case study of the project can be found on Twitter and Facebook at
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#NTTUBCUemployability. This document focuses on the Good practice frameworks tools that has been developed as an outcome of the project to support development of student experience and employability outcomes in relation to: mentoring and coaching; work-place learning; and vocational pedagogies.
2. Working with the Framework
The NTTU/BCU Employability Framework translates the outcomes of the Improving employability outcomes through student-centred approaches to learning project into a structured ‘thinking tool’ that can be used in very practical ways to initiate development and change through reflective practice. By working through the framework users will be prompted to interrogate and develop aspects of existing practice that have been identified through the project as having a significant bearing on student employability. The framework will support users to:
Develop a reflective approach to student-centred employability
Explore existing attitudes and approaches to employability and student centred-ness in their own context;
Engage the wider college or university community towards better understanding of employability in their own context;
Create new meanings, identities , roles and opportunities in relation to employability;
Collaborate with colleagues, students and partners in the wider community and world of work towards more effective approaches to employability;
Drive innovation and implement change.
The framework design is underpinned by an enquiry-based approach, participatory action research (PAR), that encourages inclusive, collaborative and co-constructionist approaches to institutional growth and development. PAR is process orientated and starts with reflexive engagement with the everyday experiences of participants in the college or university community enabling participants to develop, in collaboration with others, grounded descriptions of how student transition ‘currently works’ in their particular context. This then
allows the community to ‘work towards change’, the next stage of the PAR process, that is distinctive, highly differentiated and tailored very particularly to the needs and aspirations of the institution and the community it serves.
This generative approach, where users are most often in production rather than consumption mode, will ensure the framework generates outcomes that meet the needs of a broad spectrum of institutions and promotes learning that is responsive to the diverse student groups colleges and universities work with. As such it is ‘future-proof’, sustainable and highly relevant to a wide range of institutions concerned with effective student centred employability.
The framework is organized in two action-focused sections. Part One (page 8) of the framework focuses on establishing ‘Contexts for Change’ that is to say developing the vision, values and institutional ethos that will facilitate a culture of innovation and transformation. Part one is designed to be used at a macro level by strategic leaders to support development of institutional strategy and policy. Part Two, ‘Working For Change,’ (p18) facilitates development at the micro level by curriculum leaders and teachers seeking to impact on practice at department or course level. Each of the four focus areas that make up part two include:
an introduction to key literature and debates;
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challenge questions that scaffolds progression through the PAR cycle (Develop/Explore/Engage/Create/Collaborate/Drive) outlined above.
Challenge question prompts appear in the left hand column whilst responses and ideas for action can be recorded in the right hand column. These can then form the basis of an action plan using the planning template included in appendix 1.
The project team suggest that systematic engagement with all aspects of the framework is advisable, however individuals and teams can use any part of the framework, in any order that is useful, to effect specific local change if this a preferred or more achievable approach.
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3. The NTTU/BCU Employability Framework
3.1. Contexts for student centred employability: developing the institutional environment
Vision and Values
Establishing ‘whole institution’ vision and values for development are an important starting point for ensuring that innovation is aligned to strategic priorities and that interventions will be well supported and sustainable. The opening ‘challenge questions’ of the framework therefore provide an opportunity to reflect on purpose and vision for to facilitate the development of a ‘context for change’, an environment within which teachers are well supported and enabled to take sensible risks, be innovative and creative in pursuit of a first class, student-centred experience.
Teacher Development beyond initial training
Much of the literature concerned with teacher development, teacher learning and the ‘catch-all’ continuing professional development (CPD), uses the terms without explicit definition. Where defined, they often appear interchangeable as goal-directed change processes. For example, Evans (2002, p.131) describes teacher development as ‘the process whereby teachers’ professionality and/or professionalism may be considered to be enhanced’, while Kelly (2006, p.506) defines teacher learning as ‘the process by which teachers move towards expertise’. ‘Professionality’ refers to knowledge, practices and attitudes of individual teachers, while the notion of ‘professionalism’ goes further, suggesting enhancement in status of teachers as a collective group (Evans, 2002, p.130-1). Teacher ‘expertise’ extends beyond cognitive knowledge construction to include a collective,
‘socio-cultural perspective’ (Kelly, 2006, p.506), drawing on Lave’s (1991, p.81) view of learning as more than simply internalised, but ‘situated’. Many of these elements are seen in Eraut’s much earlier definition of teacher development as:
the natural process of professional growth in which a teacher gradually acquires confidence, gains new perspectives, increases in knowledge, discovers new methods and takes on new roles. (Eraut, 1977, p.10)
Reid (in Fraser et al, 2007, p.160-1) contrasts varied opportunities for teacher learning, including planned-formal (e.g. courses), planned-informal (e.g. networking), incidental- formal (e.g. sharing ideas at meetings) and incidental-informal (e.g. staffroom conversation). Kennedy (2005) provides a continuum of purposes: at one extreme, ‘transmission’ equips teachers to meet, or comply with, pre-determined standards; at the other, ‘transformative’ purposes promote teacher autonomy in shaping development agendas and defining standards of practice and their underlying values. ‘Transitional’ purposes between transmission and transformation have features of either or both, with ‘increasing capacity for professional autonomy’ (Kennedy, 2005, p.248). Purposes include the extent to which CPD is situational – based on individual or school priorities, or external – driven or imposed by outside influences.
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The potential of CPD to ‘support a transformative agenda’ raises the issue of ‘power’ in terms of ‘whose agendas are being addressed’ (Kennedy, 2005, p.246-7). Mockler (2005, p.742) envisions a ‘transformative teaching profession’, with a culture of trust, collaboration and risk-taking at every level in direct challenge to prevailing regulation and managerialism. The quest for continual improvement can promote what Sachs
(2001, p.155-7) calls an ‘entrepreneurial’ teacher identity, characterised as ‘individualistic; competitive;
controlling and regulative; externally defined’, juxtaposing an alternative ‘activist’ identity (p.157-8), closely aligned to the transformative purpose of CPD. Fundamentally, Kennedy (2005, p.248) recognises that purposes are not always realised as outcomes. This suggests that the individual and/or collective response of teachers, perhaps more than intended purpose, determines the extent to which CPD is transformative. As Eraut (1977, p.10) points out, ‘it is the teacher who develops (active) and not the teacher who is developed (passive)’.
Drawing on this summary, teacher development is the process of enhancing the knowledge, practice and status of individual and groups of teachers and is seen as synonymous to teacher CPD. Teacher learning is the interpretation, application and internalisation of teacher development processes by individual and groups of teachers. Teacher development and learning can be conceptualised as a nested, cyclical process consisting of purpose, opportunity and response dimensions, as represented in Fig.1 below.
Fig.1: Teacher development and learning as a multi-dimensional process Phil Taylor 2012 (drawing on: Eraut, 1977; Evans, 2002; Kennedy, 2005; Kelly, 2006; Fraser et al, 2007).
Recent surveys (Opfer et al, 2008; TALIS-OECD, 2009; Poet et al, 2010; IfL, 2010) have sought the views of teachers and leaders in relation to the prevalence, application and perceived value of different types of CPD. Three factors identified by Opfer et al (2008, p.8), in their
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VA
LUES
study for the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) in England, focus on
‘classroom-based professional learning activity’, encompassing: ‘experimental and adaptive learning’; ‘research orientation’; ‘collaborative classroom-based learning and research’. It is important to note that ‘research orientation’ refers to teachers ‘engaging with published research’ (not their own research) and experimentation, which are encapsulated in the other two factors (Opfer et al, 2008 p.45-46). The comparison between practice and values for these three factors, summarised in Fig.2, is revealing. Teacher
experimentation and Individual or collaborative research tend to be more valued and practised than
engagement with published research material.
Collaborative
Experimental & adaptive learning
classroom-based learning & research
Research orientation (use of research)
PRACTICE
Fig.2: Values and practice of three factors in teacher learning, Phil Taylor (adapted from Opfer et al,
2008)
More striking is the gap between values (high) and practice (moderate) in teacher collaboration through classroom enquiry. This is mirrored in the 2007-8 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) (OECD 2009, p.75), in which around 90% of teachers report ‘moderate or high impact’ for ‘individual and collaborative research’, but only 35% actually participate in this form of CPD (see Fig.3 below). TALIS included over 73,000 teachers in 23 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and partner countries, but not England or the UK, making the parallels between this and the TDA
survey more conspicuous. The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) survey carried out for the recently abolished General Teaching Council for England (GTCE) found a similar mismatch between teachers’ views and practice in England, with a majority expressing an interest in ‘more opportunities’ to carry out individual or collaborative research (Poet et al, 2010 p.15). However, informal collaboration (including discussion and planning) with school colleagues and/or external organisations was the most common form of CPD reported by teachers in this survey. This is reflected in TALIS, with ‘informal dialogue to improve teaching’ showing the highest participation rates (OECD, 2009, p.75) (see Fig.3 below). The largest gap between teacher participation (25%) and reported impact (87%)
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revealed by TALIS is for ‘qualification programmes’. Smaller but significant gaps are apparent for ‘professional development networks’, ‘mentoring and peer observation’ and ‘observation visits to other schools’.
Fig.3: Comparison of impact and participation by types of development activity (2007-8) (adapted from OECD, 2009)
Two recent syntheses of research (Darling-Hammond et al, 2009; Cordingley& Bell, 2012) have concluded that most the most effective models of teacher CPD in terms of impact on student learning, often include the features that teachers report as lacking in TALIS. In particular, CPD that is ‘collaborative’, ‘supported by specialist expertise’, ‘focused on aspirations for students’, ‘sustained over time’ and involves ‘exploring evidence from trying new things’, is seen as more likely to be beneficial (Cordingley& Bell, 2012, p.4). These are features often seen in ‘communities of practice’ defined by Wenger (2009, p.1) as ‘groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly’. With reference to the proposed model of teacher development and learning in Fig.1, communities of practice can be seen to have: situational and transformative purpose; provide formal/informal and planned opportunities; promote collective and active teacher response.
References
Corbin, J. M., & Strauss, A. (1990) Grounded theory research: Procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria. Qualitative Sociology, 13(1), 3–21. doi:10.1007/BF00988593. Cordingley, P. & Bell, M. (2012) Understanding What Enables High Quality Professional
Learning - A report on the research evidence. Coventry: CUREE; London: Pearson. Darling-Hammond, L., Chung Wei, R., Andree, A., Richardson, N., Orphanos, S. (2009) Professional Learning in the Learning Profession – A Status Report on Teacher Development in the United States and Abroad. Stanford: NSDC.
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Eraut, M. (1977) “Strategies for Promoting Teacher Development.”British Journal of In- Service Education, 4(1-2), 10–12. doi:10.1080/0305763770040103 Evans, L. (2002) What is Teacher Development? Oxford Review of Education, 28(1), 123–137. doi:10.1080/03054980120113670 Fraser, C., Kennedy, A., Reid, L., & Mckinney, S. (2007) Teachers’ continuing professional development: contested concepts, understandings and models.Journal of In-Service Education, 33(2), 153–169. doi:10.1080/13674580701292913 Kelly, P. (2006)What is teacher learning? A socio‐cultural perspective.Oxford Review of
Education, 32(4), 505–519. doi:10.1080/03054980600884227. Kennedy, A. (2005) Models of Continuing Professional Development: a framework for analysis. Journal of In-service Education, 31(2), 235–250. doi:10.1080/13674580500200277. Lave, J. (1991) Situating learning in communities of practice. Perspectives on Socially Shared
Cognition.American Psychological Association. Mockler, N. (2005) Trans/forming teachers: new professional learning and transformative teacher professionalism. Journal of In-service Education, 31(4), 733–746. doi:10.1080/13674580500200293 Opfer, V. D., Pedder, D., & Lavicza, Z. (2008) Schools and continuing professional development
(CPD) in England – State of the Nation research project (Survey Report No. T34718). TDA, Cambridge University. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2009)Creating effective
teaching and learning environments : first results from TALIS. Paris: OECD. Poet, H., Rudd, P., & Kelly, J. (2010) Survey of Teachers 2010 - Support to improve teaching practice. NFER, GTCE. Sachs, J. (2001) Teacher professional identity: competing discourses, competing outcomes.
Journal of Education Policy, 16(2), 149–161. doi:10.1080/02680930116819. Wenger, E. (2006) Communities of practice – a brief introduction. Online at: http://www.ewenger.com/theory/
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Developing the institutional environment – challenge questions
Establishing vision and values
Aspect Key Questions Response and Action Establishing Core Principles
What does it mean to be an effective student-centred learning community in your context?
What definitions of student-centred learning exist within your context and do you have an agreed or shared understanding of common purpose around student-centred learning?
What do you want your student-centred community to achieve:
for your students/pupils?
for your staff?
for your institution?
for the wider professional communities you work with?
for other communities you want to impact upon?
What roles and responsibilities do students and teachers take up in relation to student success and failure in your institution?
How far from these aspirations is your institution currently?
What are you already doing well? What do you do less well? What do you need to work at?
What are the opportunities and barriers to developing your learning community?
To what extent do teachers in your organisation already work together to support professional learning? In what ways?
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Aspect Key Questions Response and Action Reflect on the responses above; how might the answers to these questions frame your planning for CPD?
What are the risks if you make no change at all?
Roles and Responsibilities
What role will the leadership team play in modelling and shaping your student-centred learning community?
Who needs to be involved in action planning your strategy? And why? How will you bring the right group together?
Will you need an additional project team? What will be its purpose and terms of reference?
Will you want/need to involve any partners or external agencies?
What roles will you need to identify? What time allocation will they need?
What additional resources might be needed? How will these be found?
How will you communicate your strategy? How will you secure buy-in from different groups within your community? How will ownership of the project be shared?
How will you celebrate success?
What are the risks if you don’t make any changes?
Monitoring and Evaluation
How will you know, at an institutional level, when you’ve done what you set out to do? What will the success criteria be?
How will progress be monitored and measured at institutional level? By whom (individuals and/or groups)? How regularly?
Where will scrutiny, challenge and support come from?
What interventions might be needed when things aren’t going to plan?
How is ‘value for money’ defined and how will it be achieved?
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Aspect Key Questions Response and Action
Teacher Development
How do teachers/lecturers continue to learn about the pedagogical aspect of their work
How do teachers in your institution conceptualise the work of the higher education teacher and higher education teaching? What values and ideas do they bring to these concepts?
How are ideas about what constituted good vocational teaching and learning identified and exchanged?
To what extent are teachers encouraged and enabled to work together on common areas of interest or concern?
Modalities of CPD
What models of continuing professional development (CPD) are currently available to teachers beyond their initial training? Are they bolt-on or integrated? Face to face or online? Formal or informal?
Which modes are most valued by teachers in your institution? To what extent do what’s valued by teachers match and what’s available to them to take up match?
What opportunities are there for integrating CPD into the everyday practice of teachers work?
Spaces and Places When, where and how do teachers participate in CPD?
What different spaces (time) and places (locations) are provided for teachers to undertake CPD in your organisation:
in-house, institutional community?
local professional community?
national networks and communities?
international networks and communities?
synchronous, face-to-face?
synchronous, virtual?
asynchronous, virtual?
formal, informal?
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Aspect Key Questions Response and Action To what extent is space made in workload allocations for teachers to engage in CPD?
How might space (time) and place (opportunity) for CPD be more effectively or creatively facilitated? What or who needs to change or adapt? What additional resources might be needed?
What collaborations and partnership might help to support CPD? How might existing partnerships be further developed? What new partnership might need to be developed to support key priorities? Locally? Nationally? Internationally?
What are the risks for not providing spaces and places for CPD? For the institution? For teachers? For students?
Spaces and Places When, where and how do teachers participate in CPD?
What different spaces (time) and places (locations) are provided for teachers to undertake CPD in your organisation:
in-house, institutional community?
local professional community?
national networks and communities?
international networks and communities?
synchronous, face-to-face?
synchronous, virtual?
asynchronous, virtual?
formal, informal?
To what extent is space made in workload allocations for teachers to engage in CPD?
How might space (time) and place (opportunity) for CPD be more effectively or creatively facilitated? What or who needs to change or adapt? What additional resources might be needed?
What collaborations and partnership might help to support CPD? How might existing partnerships be further developed? What new partnership might need to be developed to support key priorities? Locally? Nationally? Internationally?
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Aspect Key Questions Response and Action What are the risks for not providing spaces and places for CPD? For the institution? For teachers? For students?
High Value Learning
What learning opportunities do teachers in your institution find most valuable? Why?
What is the relationship between teacher preferences and the learning they most commonly engage in?
If you don’t already know, what do you need to do to find out? What secondary sources of information will help to inform you? What primary data might you collect?
Low Value Learning
What learning opportunities do teachers in your institution find least valuable? Why?
How do you/can you avoid facilitation of low value learning?
Impact How will you evaluate the success of the learning community:
for students/pupils/learners?
for teachers?
for the institution?
for the wider community?
How will you disseminate what you’ve done? To whom? And why?
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3.2 Working for change
3.2.1 Developing Reflective Practice: Key issues and debates
Reflective Practice Different versions of reflective practice have become accepted and widespread as a means of organising courses that seek to combine academic discipline and knowledge with practical experience. As such, reflective practice in one guise or another can be found as a structural feature in Nursing, Teacher Education and other professionally orientated courses. Dewey defines reflective practice in the following way: “the active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it.” (1933, p.10). Dewey connects reflective thought to learning itself: What (an individual) has learned in the way of knowledge and skill in one situation becomes and instrument in the way of understanding and dealing effectively with the situations which follow. The process goes on as long as life and learning continue. (Dewey 1933, p.4) Dewey’s broad definition applies to work-based learning for students particularly in the way they can think
and write about their experience in order to learn. The use of placement or practice journals is the best
established way of getting students to engage in reflective practice. This kind of journal writing is a dialogical
rather than monological process. In other words, students need to feel they are writing to an audience, in
most cases, a personal tutor. This is because the nature of the relationship between the students and
personal tutor – discursive and heuristic rather than confessional - is a vital element in successful reflective
practice.
One basic model of the way reflective practice works is illustrated by Kolb’s Four Stage Model of Learning (see
diagram).
Kolb’s Four Stage Model of Learning (Kolb 1984)
Abstract Conceptualisation
Reflective
observation
Active
Experimentation
Abstract Conceptualisation
Reflective Observation
Active Experimentation
Concrete Experience
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Kolb’s model simplifies the reflective practice concept into a cycle in which experience is reflected on and
theorised to enable future experimentation. This experimentation then becomes the focus of further
reflection in a process of on-going refinement.
Schon’s (1983) model of the reflective practitioner suggests the key distinction of reflecting in action as
against reflecting on action. Use largely in the contest of teacher education, it considers that successful and
effective teaching requires one to reflect actively by bringing to bear on one’s own practice available and
appropriate sources of knowledge and understanding. Both models assume a need for the student identity to
be worked on. To some extent then, they can be seen as a sociological and as tools that seek to insert the
novice practitioner into an existing social order without questioning it. For some, the model is technical and
reductive. Moon (2004) and Danielewicz (2001) (among others) position the affective aspects of experience
more centrally, seeing the processing of emotion as a precursor to the application of theory. They stress the
organic and holistic aspects of the process.
Reflective practice can act as an important structural feature in the mentoring process. This form of Socratic
dialogue scaffolds the experiential learning and development of students as they reflect on “critical incidents”
(Tripp 1994) – episodes in their practice from which they articulate their development through reflection and
the application of theory. This model sits well within a caring, nurturing and protective relationship.
Critical Reflective practice
Critical reflective practice builds on reflective practice by adding an additional focus. Not only does the
practitioner focus on their own practice in a given situation, but they also look beyond their immediate
environment to scrutinise, for example, the impact of policy or to critique common sense assumptions that
mask ideological precepts. Brookfield in particular (Brookfield 2004) sees critical reflective practice as
involving a self-interrogatory perspective particularly in relation to one’s own assumptions and values.
Kemmis (1995, p.141) states:
My argument here is that reflection is action-oriented, social and political. Its product is praxis
(informed, committed action) the most eloquent and socially significant form of human action.
Critical reflective practice can be seen as building on its less politicised sibling through an insistence on the
political nature of the workplace and society in general. In this context, the orientation to action of reflective
practice moves beyond mere personal development and instead becomes a political commitment. The
practitioner (experienced or novice) is invited to reflect on their practice as contextualised within broader
social structures of inequality and oppression. The aim is not just to improve individual practice – after all,
that might mean simply becoming more efficient at a practice of questionable social value – rather, the
practitioner is encouraged to view their practice as a means of challenging social structures and values that
are seen as contributing to the unfreedom of individuals.
For Mezirow and other educationalists who see education as an engine for social change and tackling
inequality, critical reflection is an integral aspect of emancipatory education:
Emancipatory education is an organized effort to help the learner challenge presuppositions,
explore alternative perspectives, transform old ways of understanding, and act on new
perspectives.
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Critical reflection involves the student (and the teacher) challenging their assumptions in an attempt to
transform their perspectives:
Perspective transformation is the process of becoming critically aware of how we perceive,
understand, and feel about our world; of reformulating these assumptions to permit a more
inclusive, discriminating, permeable, and integrative perspective. (Mezirow 1990, p.14)
Critical reflective practice therefore implies a wider frame of reference for learning. While the emphasis is still
on individual development, the need to critique existing social arrangements and structures is required.
Individual & collective applications
Reflective practice has an individual but also a collective purpose. For an individual, reflective practice
involves thinking about and learning from one’s own experience and practice and from the practices of others
so as to gain new perspectives on the dilemmas and contradictions inherent in your educational situation.
The aim is to improve judgment, and increase the probability of taking informed action when situations are
complex, unique and uncertain. This individual focus is traditionally enacted through writing journal entries.
Kamler (2001) talks about writing as being a place or space in which subjectivity can be shaped. Writing
enables thinking and through that, the development of the subject. It is important to recognise though that
this kind of writing does assume an audience of some description.
At the level of the collective or the institution, critical reflective practice can become a way of scrutinising and
disrupting the workplace habitus. In the workplace, reflective practice can serve as a way of reinterpreting
existing practices and values and as a way of critiquing customary practices and rejuvenating habitus.
Reflective practice is an “irreducibly social” and collegial process (Brookfield 1995) in which the (novice)
practitioner makes herself vulnerable by opening up her practice to the critical and constructive comment of
her colleagues. This can happen through conversation or through a more formal and structured process that
may have some similarities with assessment.
Reflexivity
Reflexivity is more than reflection as it extends and develops Schon’s distinction on reflecting on and
reflecting in (or during) activity, emphasising the importance of the latter in addressing social inequality. For
Hertz (1997, p.viii) for example, “[t]o be reflexive is to have an ongoing conversation about the experience
while simultaneously living in the moment”. Reflexivity in this sense is about developing an awareness in the
lived moment of how knowledge is inscribed with the social relations in which it is produced. It becomes
necessary in reflexivity to consider the impact of unequal social relations in any given situation or context.
This has consequences for the student’s perspectives on social class, race (or ethnicity), gender and dis/ability
and any other significant sources of social inequality and the impact of these factors in lived experience not
just afterwards when thinking and writing about critical incidents. A key aim in this is the avoidance of
replicating existing patterns of social oppression and disempowerment within the student’s practice.
References
Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Practitioner, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Danielewicz, J. (2001). Teaching selves: Identity, pedagogy, and teacher education. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
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Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: a restatement of the relation of reflective thinking and the educational
process. New York: D.C Heath.
Hertz, Rosanna (ed.) (1997). Reflexivity and Voice. London: Sage.
Kamler, B. (2001). Relocating the personal. A critical writing pedagogy. New York: State University of New York
Press.
Kemmis, S. (1995) “Action Research and the Politics of Reflection” in David Boud, Rosemary Keogh and David
Walker, eds., Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning (New York: Kogan Page Ltd., 1985) 139 - 141.
Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning. London: Prentice Hall.
Mezirow, J. (1990). Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Moon, J. (2004). A handbook of reflective and experiential learning, Abingdon: Routledge Falmer.
Schon, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Tripp, D. 1994. Teachers’ lives, critical incidents and professional practice. Qualitative Studies in Education 7
(1): 65–76.
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Developing Reflective Practice – Challenge Questions
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Aspect Key Questions Response and Action
Identifying opportunities for reflection
What planned opportunities for pausing and reflecting (formally or informally) already exist for students? For example
- journals - notes from practice - discussions about experience on placement - discussion of critical incidents - experimenting with implementation of new ideas - evaluation of learning
To what extent are these linked to enable students to build a coherent narrative/story about their development? To what extent is learning ‘iterative’ at the moment? How could you use the opportunities for pause and reflect identified to support iterative approaches to learning?
Identifying student support needs
To what extent do teachers use opportunities for pause and reflection to identify student development needs? What strategies exist for effective management of student development in the context of big groups?
Developing Reflective practice
What models of reflective practice do you currently work with? Which models of reflective practice do you think could add value to
your own practice?
your students’ practice?
the way you work together as a community?
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3.2.2. Mentoring and Coaching: Key Issues and Debates
Situated learning on placement is a practical aspect of many professionally orientated HE courses. As a
relationship that centres on this, mentoring plays a role in the induction of students into new domains
and practices in different workplaces across a range of subjects. Mentoring in the workplace is a key
ingredient in successfully “growing an individual” both professionally and personally (Lord et al. 2008).
As such, a clearly established conceptualisation of the meaning of the role is vital in transitioning
individuals between HE and employment contexts.
Mentoring has many different characteristics and draws together different aspects into a unified
process. It is:
a supportive relationship; a helping process; a teaching-learning process; a reflective
process; a career development process; a formalised process; and a role constructed by or
for a mentor. (Roberts 2000, p.145)
An important aspect of the contribution of the mentoring role to learning is that the learning is social
and contextual. Mentoring can contribute to knowledge creation in a social process in which the
outcomes are shared meanings and understandings that may not be accessible to students in academic
books (Eraut 2007).
Mentoring as an integral aspect of workplace (learning) culture
Mentoring has become increasingly important in the induction of individuals into professional practice
– as mentors take on the role of assessing the newcomer’s achievement of professional standards
(Nettleton et al 2005). As a role that positions the mentor between professional standards, knowledge
about the workplace and workplace practices, mentoring carries a significant burden. According to Lord
et al (2008, p.46):
The workplace culture, including relationships, hierarchies, the ethos, staff morale and team dynamics,
are critical issues influencing mentor practice.
Mentoring relationships are likely to mirror the dominant cultural values of the institution in which
they take place. Where mentoring is being established, building on existing practices may be the best
way forward, but carries the risk of imbuing the new form with culturally embedded meanings that
may not be appropriate. Here “contrived collegiality” (Hargreaves 2004) needs to be avoided – in other
words, the collaboratively orientated relationship must be allowed to take precedence over the
administrative role of assessment.
Mentoring is susceptible to contextual cultural pressures. In the neo-liberal paradigm, mentoring has
increasingly become a technology for absorbing neophyte staff into existing structures of production
and workplace norms. This version of mentoring typically harnesses the power dynamic of the
relationship and transforms interactions into i) performance management; ii) institutional assimilation
of the novice and iii) replication of existing hierarchies of power, practices and cultures. In this technical
rationalist approach to mentoring there are many drawbacks:
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Its disadvantages (can be) described as reductionist, decontextualised, and atomistic, in
that teaching and learning is directed towards predetermined, narrowly defined
performance criteria, which neither indicate the scope for further development, nor include
any reference to the context within which they may have been achieved. (Nettleton et al
2005, p.3)
Under this model of mentoring, the relationship becomes one of policing the empty ideological
abstract signifier of “standards” (Laclau 1996). The tension created by the conflation of the two
distinct functions, developmental support and summative assessment against a set of externally
imposed professional standards can militate in favour of an assessment-led model of mentoring that
undermines a more reflective model (Tedder and Lawy 2009).
In rigidly hierarchical organisations, in which there is an emphasis on top-down unilateral decision-
making by senior staff, mentoring is likely to become a kind of testing ground for 'junior' management,
a terrain in which people can practice and play out the prevalent cultural models on offer to the
detriment of the student’s learning.
The opposite of this model, which places the emphasis on education and personal development, is one
that originates in (among others) Freire. Freire wrote about the banking model of education founded
upon the transmission of knowledge in which the teacher is the “expert” and the student is the
ignorant novice. For Freire, this unbalanced relationship is inherently oppressive. He proposes an
alternative model:
In the banking concept of education, knowledge is…. bestowed by those who consider
themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an
absolute ignorance on to others is a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates
education and knowledge as processes of inquiry…. Education must begin with the
reconciliation of the teacher-student divide… so that both are simultaneously teachers and
students. (Friere 1970, p.53)
There is evidence of the impact of mentoring on the cultures of the organisation in which it takes place.
Research suggests that mentoring is particularly valuable in fostering a research/learning culture, a
reflective culture, and a collaborative culture in organisations (Lord et al 2008, iv).
Mentoring offers a way into structuring what Lave and Wenger visualise as a “legitimate peripheral
participation” (1991). In this, they suggest a metaphor to explain and envisage the journey of a new
member of staff on a gradual movement towards the centre of the community of the workplace. This
vision of a novice gradually accumulating experience, understanding and skills within a trusting and
learning-orientated environment is more readily realised if the novice is provided with a key relational
resource, a mentor. It is the mentor with “insider” knowledge (Smyth and Holian 2008) who scaffolds
the novice’s learning.
Mentoring is a way of taking account of the idea that a lot of workplace knowledge cannot be
effectively communicated or made explicit in books but instead needs to be acquired through
participation in social activities. This connects to the Aristotelian notion of phronesis or “seamless
know-how” as Hager (2004) terms it. There is a suggestion in this (Eraut 2007, p.405) that the
contextualised nature of this learning means that it takes place on a continuum that ranges from
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formal conscious acquisition of knowledge to informal “taken for granted” interactions that
nevertheless constitute learning opportunities. There is some evidence that mentoring is particularly
important for students from minority backgrounds as they struggle to find their place in work
organisations (Nettleton et al 2005, p.3)
Mentoring & reflective practice
Mentoring links strongly to reflective practice as it suggests that the mentor can be the interlocutor,
the experienced member of staff who takes part in Socratic dialogue with the student in order to foster
their development over a period of time. In order to ensure that reflection extends beyond a dialogue
limited to the personal and into one that critiques existing frameworks for understanding, according to
Simmie and Moles (2012) “mentors need to use research to inform and underpin their practice, to
understand the variety of perspectives and interrogate their practice using an evidence-informed lens.
(Simmie and Moles 2012, p.109)
Extending as it does across formal and informal contexts, mentoring crossing over between formal and
informal learning. Induction into cultural practices within an institution. Mentoring at its best is
dialogical, localised communicative action (Habermas 1986) in which the issues that need to be dealt
with as part of the day to day work environment are tackled as part of students’ gradual induction into
their role. There are twin aims in this: i) the immediate successful achievement of tasks and the
effective deployment of the skills and knowledge associated with this and ii) the longer term, gradual
acquisition of contextual understandings that facilitate in the deployment of said skills and knowledge.
Conclusions: Developing Mentoring in HE settings – nested practices
Mentoring is best conceptualised as one aspect of series of nested practices. Mentoring sits within a
partnership culture that engages all partners in reflective practice. As such, mentoring is a pedagogical,
fractral micro-feature within a wider network of relationships, practices and contextual culture that
supports learning across institutions. Mentoring can provide a bridge between the cultural practices
associated with learning (in the academy) and the cultural practices of the workplace. However this
bridging relationship cannot be assumed and rather needs to be nurtured through broader institutional
partnerships, events and social interaction. Effective mentoring works best as an institutional aspect of
a larger educational partnership between HEIs and placement organisations. Within such an
architecture, mentoring can be thought of as a long term personal and professional relationship that,
over time, can create a ripple effect (Varney 2009) in which mentors’ industry on behalf of their
protégés produces a multiplying investment in people’s lives and communities (Moerer-Urdahl and
Creswell 2004).
Two models
Dominant skills-focussed conceptualisation of mentoring
Critical re-conceptualisation of mentoring process
Mentoring as gate-keeping Mentoring as pedagogical
Mentoring as policing entry into members’ club
Mentoring as a key relationship scaffolding engagement with CoP
Mentoring as assessment focused Mentoring as developmental and nurturing
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Mentoring as part of a rite of passage Mentoring as cultural and institutional induction
Mentoring as transmission of a body of competence-based knowledge
Mentoring as dialogical and two-way process
Mentoring as (national) standards focused Mentoring as socially situated practice
Mentoring as unexamined induction Mentoring as reflexive
Mentoring as a tool for replication of existing power relations and knowledge systems
Mentoring as a tool for institutional renewal and the potential re*** of existing power relations and subversion of existing knowledge systems
References
Eraut, M. (2007). Learning from other people in the workplace, Oxford Review of Education, 33:4, 403-422.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum.
Habermas, J. (1986). The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol 1, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hager, P. (2004). Front-loading, workplace learning and skill development, Educational Philosophy and Theory:
36(5), 523-534.
Hargreaves, A. and Skelton, J. (2004). Politics and systems of mentoring, in Fletcher, S. and Mullen, C. (2004) The
Sage handbook of Mentoring and Coaching in education, p122 – 45.
Jones, M., Nettleton, P., Smith, L., Brown, J., Chapman, T. and Morgan, J. (2005). ‘The mentoring chameleon - a
critical analysis of mentors’ and mentees’ perceptions of the mentoring role in professional education and
training programmes for teachers, nurses, midwives and doctors.’ Paper presented at the British Educational
Research Association Annual Conference, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, 14-17 September [online].
Available: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/143672.doc [12 November, 2008].
Laclau, E. (1996). Emancipation(s). London: Verso.
Lave, J., and Wenger E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: CUP.
Lord, P., Atkinson, M. and Mitchell, H. (2008). Mentoring and Coaching for Professionals, a study of the research
evidence. NFER, available at: https://www.nfer.ac.uk/nfer/publications/MCM01/MCM01.pdf, accessed 30 June
2016.
Moerer-Urdahl, T., & Creswell, J. (2004). Using transcendental phenomenology to explore the “ripple
effect” in a leadership mentoring program. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3 (2).
Roberts, A. (2000) Mentoring revisited: a phenomenological reading of the literature, Mentoring and Tutoring, 8
(2), 145-170.
Simmie, G., and Moles, J. (2012) Educating the Critically Reflective Mentor. In The Sage Handbook of Mentoring
and Coaching in Education. Edited by Sarah J. Fletcher and Carol A. Mullen. 107-121. London, California, New
Delhi, Singapore: Sage Publications.
Smyth, A., & Holian, R. (2008). Credibility Issues in Research from within Organisations. In P. Sikes & A. Potts
(Eds.), Researching education from the inside New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
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Tedder, M., and R. Lawy. (2009). The pursuit of ‘excellence’: Mentoring in further education initial teacher
training in England. Journal of Vocational Education and Training 61, no. 4: 413–29.
Varney, J. (2009). Humanistic mentoring: nurturing the person within, Kappa Delta Pi Record, 45 (3) 127-131.
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Mentoring and Coaching – Challenge questions
Aspect Questions Response and Action
University/Faculty/Department Partnership with employers
What kind of existing links are there between the department (university) and organisation (partner)?
How is this relationship built on mutual benefits for both parties?
How is support offered by department to develop understanding of student’s needs in placement?
Have you developed professional competencies that both parties are agreed upon?
Have you identified similar expectations from the mentoring experience? – from the student? – from each other?
Partners supporting students
Is time and space recognised for the role of mentoring?
Do you allow time and space for students to receive attention?
If so, are these linked to specific points within the day/week/term of the placement?
Purpose of mentoring/coaching in placement
Have you identified the initial skills that the student requires to perform effectively within placement?
What is the focus (or purpose) of mentoring/coaching within the partner organisation? Is it: …to support the development and induction of learners entering the sector? …to support professional learning and development with the aim of improving skills and knowledge? …to develop learning and learner outcomes? …to support new leaders or those moving into new leadership roles? …to address underperformance?
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Aspect Questions Response and Action
Provision of a safe environment for support
How do you identify student’s specific needs?
How do you identify your own needs in relation to supporting the student?
How do you help students to understand and manage emotions and expectations that come with learning and professional commitment?
Do you have strategies to cope with conflict of interpersonal and intrapersonal stresses?
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3.2.3. Vocational Pedagogies - Key Issues and Debates
Conceptualising Employability
Central to a consideration of vocational pedagogy is the way we conceptualise ideas about employability. In this section we explore what (Gee, 2011) refers to as ‘big D’ Discourses about employability, “that is to say the combination of language, actions, interactions, ways of thinking, believing and valuing and using various symbols, tools and objects to enact a particular sort of socially recognizable identity” (2011:201) in this case two competing accounts of ‘employability’. The first account traces neo-liberal discourse outlined above as played out at the institutional locus, the second draws on thinking from literacy studies to imagine a new pedagogical paradigm for students exploration of employability.
‘Employability’ in the neo-liberal turn
In terms of delivering an institutional response to this employer/employment-led agenda universities have often tried to raise the visibility of employability as an extra facet of undergraduate entitlement. Most commonly this has involved overtly embedding skills based, employment-related activities into existing courses, creating new stand-alone employment focused courses (sometimes accredited) or strands to degree programmes and increasing opportunities for work experience. This produces a clear employer-led agenda that has shaped policy and pedagogic discourses around graduate employability. In combination these approaches have a tendency to treat graduateness as a form of enhanced ‘work-readiness’ (Boden and Nedeva, 2010, p. 49-50) engendering an ‘entrepreneurial habitus’ that socialises students to become compliant workers (Tarrent, 2001).
In common with the widening participation agenda in higher education, enhanced employability skills for graduates have been consistently presented as a commodified resource that successive governments have been prepared to invest in so that they can compete and trade more effectively in global economic and employment markets (Ball, 2008; Sanguinnetti 2001 and Gee 2000). In this way employability initiatives and strategies concur with a very individuated model of learning in higher education. Gee (2000, p. 46) discusses how in what he calls the New Capitalism, skills can be neatly compartmentalised and are universally applicable. Individuals in this model are constituted in the labour market as skills ‘repositories’ ready to advertise and display what they have to offer any potential employer. As such individual agency is subjugated to ensembles of “skills stored in a person, assembled for a specific project, to be reassembled for other projects, and shared…” (2000, p. 46)
In a Foucauldian sense, we argue conversely that the skills-focused discourses that inform many employability programmes can end up limiting individuals’ engagement with the world of work as their emphasis is often on a very narrow and functional model of employability skills which ‘… structure the possible field of action’ (Foucault, 1982. p 221) in which those skills can be deployed. In comparison, the ‘real life’ arena for employability literacies is fluid, complicated and always already in flux. It is therefore difficult to envisage how a single universal skill set could ever cover all the different aspects of employment that might be required by graduates. For this reason we maintain that a predominately skills focused discourse has served to limit students, lecturers and employers’ conceptions of employability in particular kinds of ways.
Dominant, skills- focussed conceptualisation of employability skills
Re-conceptualisation – ‘critical’ employability
Autonomous Ideological
Objective Subjective
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Technicist skills set - Reading as transmission, decoding - Writing as transmission, encoding
Social practice - Reading as meaning making – self and world - Writing as making – self and world
Universal Situated
Functional Creative
Performative Developmental
Fixed Fluid
A-historical Historically situated
Naturalistic, Humanist subject Ontological subject
Neoliberal driver Social justice impulse
Critical incidents Hot Spots
Dominant skills-focussed conceptualisation development around employability
Re-conceptualisation – ‘critical’ employability development process
Linear Rhizomic
Quality led Experiential
Product focussed Process based
Norm referenced Relative
Individual Social
Generic Context-bound
Individual Collaborative
External Embedded
Deficit/repair model Holistic/open-ended
Acquisitional Embedded
Reflective Reflexive
Fig 4: Adapted from French (2015)
As figure 4 shows in the dominant skills focussed model, employability often appears as a tangible, known and knowable, fixed set of skills that can be systematically and mechanically acquired. Consequently, traditional conceptions of employability understand employment ‘competencies’ to belong to de-contextualised ‘tool-kits’ of, ‘key’, ‘core’, ‘transferable’ and/or ‘generic’ skills. Such “key competencies” argues Kascak (2011: 84) “have become obligatory resources in planning education at all levels (in…state and school curricula)” serving “to produce high-quality ‘human capital’ for the labour market.”
Specifically, employability skills around communication are underpinned by an autonomous (Street, 1995) model of literacy skills. Within such a model literary social practices such as reading, writing, speaking and listening skills can be unproblematically transferred to the workplace, irrespective of the employment settings graduates might find themselves in.
Such a view reflects an essentially neoliberal concept of human capital where the onus falls on the student, who has a responsibility to become employable and/or attractive to employers, an “entrepreneur of one’s own development” (Gerlach, 2000:189, cited in Kascak et al, 2011:74), in order to compete successfully for the opportunity to work. In a time of recession and high unemployment degrees are increasingly ‘sold’ on the basis that they can enhance participant’s employability, affording competitive edge in the job market, “clearly indicat[ing] the interconnections between” concepts of “the active, self-organized and self-educated individual and economic efficiency” (Kascek 2011:74). This reflects a broader shift in education, as discussed above, towards a more commodified, ‘new knowledge economy’ (Ball, 2008) that positions graduate-ness as
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enhanced human and social capital, primarily paid for, or subsidised by the state and as such, accountable to the state.
However, left unquestioned this reliance on a ‘tool-box’ approach to employability where students are encouraged to acquire a repertoire of such skills, has a tendency to elide social and political differences between individuals, and means that issues of cultural capital and unequal power relations between individuals and groups are often not taken into account, by students or those working with them in pursuit of an employability agenda.
Re-thinking employability – towards a social practice model
Higher education academic writing and writing development practices take place within institutions which may be highly pedagogised spaces in disciplinary terms but which often lack a sense of clarity and criticality about what actually constitutes and supports learning generally and academic literacies specifically (Lea and Street, 1998; Ganobscik- Williams, 2006). Biggs (2003) argues that all forms of higher education learning may, for this reason, benefit from a more explicitly ‘metacognitive’ pedagogic approaches that foreground and problematise the processes involved in learning and teaching. Barnett’s (2000) argues that universities inhabit a ‘super complex’ world in which they are not sole, authoritative producers and reproducers of information or knowledge in particular, fixed forms. Indeed, he argues that in the modern world the nature and status of any knowledge-claims are increasingly debatable and contestable as are the forms deployed to express them. Learning in higher education should, therefore, according to Barnett (2000), be progressively experienced via the negotiation of a number of contested critical metanarratives or frameworks through which information can be expressed and experienced.
The L4E project that we draw on to construct this second narrative takes as its alternative starting point the idea that employability literacies can neither be summed up as a definable skills set nor usefully taught as part of a functional work-based curriculum (Pegg, 2010). In this section we aim to challenge established approaches to student employability by plugging-in to theories and concepts from New Literacy Studies (NLS) theorists, (Barton and Hamilton, 1998; Barton, Hamilton and Ivanic, 2000, Gee et al 1996; Street, 1984, 1995) to help us think through student learning about employment, the ‘world of work’ and participation in the workplace. NLS researchers have sought to reconceptualise literacy as a complex social activity embedded in domains of practice. In this approach employability practices, like other social practices, are part “…of a [workplace] domain… framed by its culture. Their meaning and purpose are socially constructed through negotiations among present and past members…[Such] activities thus cohere in a way that is, in theory, if not always in practice, accessible to members who move within the social framework. These coherent, meaningful, and purposeful activities are….most simply defined as the ordinary practices of the culture” (Seely Brown, Collins & Duguid 1989: 1).
As figure 4 demonstrates, the shifted emphasis informing the L4E critical employability literacies framework reflects Barnett’s (2000) belief that contestable and fluid pedagogic frameworks are a vital component of ‘super complexity’ in higher education as they seek to create new spaces for students (and lecturers) to question traditional practices, in this case in relation to orthodoxies of employability. Employability literacies, such as interviewing, writing application forms and conducting presentations can be usefully viewed as socially situated activities which need to take into account the wider social contexts in which they take place. Situated theories of learning/cognition provide “…conceptual and methodological resources for investigating the fundamental processes of cognition as a social and situated activity” (Kirshner & Whitson, 1997: 3). In particular, they trouble traditional concepts of knowledge transfer and knowledge acquisition “by shifting the focus away from the individual as the unit of analysis toward the sociocultural setting in which activities are embedded (Kirshner and Whitson. 1997: 5)”.
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This situated learning/cognition model challenges the traditional, passive ‘knowledge transfer’ model often implicit in university teaching (as discussed above) where there is a reliance on individuated, human capital models of knowledge acquisition which imply little connection between subject-specific learning, context and discourse. One can argue that any situated and social activity, such as being interviewed or writing a letter of application can only become meaningful in an external, social domain rather than through any individuated, internal processes - as Brown, Collins and Duguid contend when knowledge is co-produced through activity “learning and cognition…are fundamentally situated” (1989: 1).
Useful References
An Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance. (2010) Securing a sustainable future for higher education (The Browne Report) [WWW] Available from: http://www.independent.gov.uk/browne-report [Accessed 13/10/10].
Boden, R. & Nedeva, M. (2010) 'Employing discourse: Universities and graduate’ employability''. Journal of Education Policy, 25: 37 - 54.
Callaghan, J. (1976) Ruskin College Oxford. [WWW] Available from: http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/speeches/1976ruskin.html [Accessed 24/1/11].
Campaign for the Public University (CfPU) (2011) Putting vision back into higher education: a response to the government white paper. [WWW] Available from: http://publicuniversity.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Response_to_White_ Paper_Final.pdf [Accessed 8/8/11].
Committee on Higher Education (1963) Higher education: report (The Robbins Report) London: HMSO, Cmnd 2154.
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) (2011) Higher education: students at the heart of the system. London: TSO, June 2011 Cm 8122.
Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) (1998) Higher education for the 21st century: response to the Dearing report. London: DfEE.
Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2003) The future of higher education. London: TSO, January 2003 Cm 5735.
Department of Education and Science (DES) (1987) Higher education: meeting the challenge. London: HMSO, Cm 114.
Department of Education and Science (DES) (1991) Higher education: a new framework. London: HMSO, Cm1541.
Freedman, D. & Fenton, N. (2011) Business first, students second: the future of English higher education? [WWW] Available from: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/des-freedman-and-natalie-fenton/ business-first-students-second-future-of-english-higher-e [Accessed 4/7/11].
Gee, J.P. (2000) New people in new worlds: networks, the new capitalism and schools in Cope, Bill., Kalantzis, M. edn Multiliteracies London: Routledge
Gee, J.P. (2011). How to do discourse analysis. London: Routledge
Jones, R. & Thomas, L. (2005) The 2003 UK government higher education white paper: a critical assessment of its implications for the access and widening participation agenda. Journal of Education Policy, 20(5), pp.615-630.
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Pegg, A. & Carr, J. (2010) 'Articulating learning and supporting student employability: Using the concept of 'illusion' to make sense of the issues raised by distance learners'. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 12: 78-90. Tasker, M., & Packham, D. (1994) Changing cultures? Government intervention in higher education 1987-93. British Journal of Educational Studies, 42(2), pp.150-161.
Thorpe, C. (2008) Capitalism, audit and the demise of the humanistic academy. Workplace: A journal for academic labour 15, pp.103-125.
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Vocational pedagogy – challenge questions
Aspect Key Questions Response and Action
Employability What ideas and definitions about employability are in use in your institution?
How do these (differently) position groups of stake-holder in relation to what effective vocational education looks like?
- students? - teachers? - employers?
Expertise How are different stake-holder positioned in relation to expertise? What informs ideas about the ‘good’ employee?
What is the relationship between what students learn in the work-place and what they learn in the classroom?
- how does the curriculum maintain currency? Credibility?
Risk To what extent are students enabled to critically question and critique the custom and practice?
What does risk-taking in learning mean in your context and to what extent are students enabled and supported to take thoughtful risk?
How are student enabled to build resilience?
Workplace knowledge
Where is knowledge about the workplace produced? Owned?
What relationship do students and teachers have with knowledge making practices?
To what extent do students have opportunities to produce new knowledge about workplace practice?
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3.2.4. Student Centred Assessment: Key Issues and debates
Historically, assessment was viewed as the thing which happened after learning had taken place. Graue writes how ‘...assessment and instruction are often conceived as curiously separate in both time and purpose’ (Graue 1993, p291). In this view, a course of ‘instruction’ is followed by assessment, as shown here:
“Curiously Separate”
In a similar vein, Shepard 2002 (p230) outlined the changing views of assessment and testing from a curriculum viewpoint:
Key terminologies
The notion of assessment itself can encompass a number of aspects. The report of the Task Group on Assessment and Testing (TGAT 1988) delineated four purposes for assessment:
Formative: So that the positive achievements of a pupil may be recognised and discussed and the appropriate next steps may be planned
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Diagnostic: Through which learning difficulties may be scrutinised and classified so that appropriate remedial help and guidance can be provided
Summative: For the recording of the overall achievement of the student in a systematic way
Evaluative: By means of which some aspects of the work of a school, an LEA or other discrete part of the education service can be assessed and/or reported upon. (TGAT 1988 para 23)
Arising out of the TGAT four uses, three primary uses for assessment can be noted (Torrance and Pryor 1998; Black 1995). These are:
Certification of student achievement.
Accountability of education systems.
The enhancement of learning by the provision of appropriate feedback
The first of the uses identified by Torrance and Pryor is summative assessment. This is assessment which ‘sums up’ a pupils achievement in one or more domains. The second purpose is likely to be undertaken from a more system-wide perspective. The third use identified, the provision of feedback, is a part of formative assessment.
Fautley and Savage (2008, p27) mapped out diagrammatically the key aspects of formative and summative assessment:
What is worth observing here is that the aspect which joins up formative and summative assessment, termed the formative use of summative assessment is one which can often be mistaken for formative assessment per se. Whilst this need not be a problem in itself, this is worth addressing when institution-wide discussions are taking place concerning its meaning, so as to ensure that whichever use is being employed, this is widely understood. As Harlen and James (1997: 365) observed”
Because formative assessment has to be carried out by teachers, there is an assumption that all assessment by teachers is formative, adding to the blurring of the distinction between formative and summative purposes and to teachers changing their own on-going assessment into a series of ‘mini’ assessments each of which is essentially summative in character
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This is an important distinction, and one which we can readily recognize in many classes. The subtle changeover from aspects of formative assessment, with teachers talking with pupils, and giving them regular, specific, and targeted feedback has gradually been replaced as a notion of assessment with the use of tasks and tests which provide data which is then used to inform the future progress of the pupils. This does not mean that there has been a wholesale change in pedagogy, but that the idea of talking with pupils and helping them with their learning has been slowly replaced by the grading of a summative task or test.
The notion of feedback is an important one here, discussed by the TGAT report cited above:
Assessment lies at the heart of this process. It can provide a framework in which educational objectives may be set and [learners’] progress charted and expressed. It can yield a basis for planning the next steps in response to [learners’] needs ... it should be an integral part of the educational process, continually providing both “feedback” and “feedforward”. It therefore needs to be incorporated systematically into teaching strategies and practices at all levels. (TGAT, 1988 para 3)
The place and role of feedback in teaching and learning situations needs careful and clear positioning, and thought about by practitioners.
Black and Wiliam (1998) described how formative assessment can be difficult to employ successfully, and that it needs careful and close attention by the teacher:
Thus the improvement of formative assessment cannot be a simple matter. There is no ‘quick fix’ that can be added to existing practice with promise of rapid reward. On the contrary, if the substantial rewards of which the evidence holds out promise are to be secured, this will only come about if each teacher finds his or her own ways of incorporating the lessons and ideas that are set out above into her or his own patterns of classroom work. This can only happen relatively slowly, and through sustained programmes of professional development and support.(p. 15, emphasis in original)
This places it in a different position from that of summative assessment. Harlen & James defined the characteristics of Summative assessment like this:
It takes place at certain intervals when achievement has to be reported
It relates to progression in learning against public criteria
The results for different pupils may be combined for various purposes because they are based on the same criteria
It requires methods which are as reliable as possible without endangering validity
It requires some quality assurance procedures
It should be based on evidence from the full range of performance relevant to the criteria being used. (Harlen & James, 1997 p.373)
This brings us to the thorny issue of reliability and validity. Reliability and validity are important terminologies in discussions concerning assessment, and each has a specific meaning.
Reliability
Reliability in assessment term refers primarily to the consistency or otherwise of assessment results. Examples include:
If a student undertook the same assessment on two subsequent days would that pupil obtain the same results?
If a single assessment done by a single student is marked and graded by two different assessors will the results be the same? This aspect of reliability is known as inter-rater reliability
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If the same assessor marked a single assessment on two different occasions would the student achieve the same results?
If the same assessment was undertaken by two groups of students of more-or-less similar ability would both groups achieve the same results?
We can see from this that the aim for assessors and test producers is to try to make examinations as reliable as possible. This we accept, but how likely is it?
Educational assessments are unreliable for a number of reasons. The individuals being tested are not consistent in their performance—people have ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’—and, apart from multiple-choice tests, there is also some inconsistency in the ways that assessments are marked. But the most significant cause of unreliability is the actual choice of items for a particular test. If we have an annual assessment like the national curriculum tests or GCSE examinations, then, because the papers are not kept secret, new versions have to be prepared each year. The question is then are the tests interchangeable? The two tests might be assessing broadly the same thing, but one of the two tests might suit a particular candidate better than the other. We therefore have a situation where the scores that candidates get depend on how lucky they are… (Wiliam, 2000 p.108)
We need to be aware that in any educational setting people are involved, both in undertaking the assessment, and in marking and grading it, and that people are not machines, consequently this itself is going to introduce another form of reliability problem. Assessment under these circumstances will vary.
We need to be very aware too that some aspects of education are amenable to assessment, others less so. The implication of this is that reliability ‘… is concerned with precision and accuracy. Some features, e.g. height, can be measured accurately, whilst others, e.g. musical ability, cannot’ (Cohen et al., 2000 p.117). Measuring height does seem straightforward, and we do at least begin by knowing what it means.
Validity
Validity refers to the notion of an assessment procedure actually assessing what it is trying to assess, and not inadvertently assessing something else. Building on the work of McCormick and James (1983) and James (1998) it is possible to extract seven categories of validity which are applicable in terms of assessment material:
1. Face Validity, wherein something looks, on the face of it, as if it is able to measure what it purports to measure. This can be issue in classroom assessments where what is intended to be assessed is some form of response, whereas what is actually being assessed is the pupil’s use of language
2. Content Validity: This refers to an assessment covering all of the relevant subject matter, and not just isolated aspects. This can be an issue within many subject areas, and it is hard to find an assessment which covers all aspects. What tends to happen is that teachers produce separate assessments for each area of content they wish to assess.
3. Criterion-Related Validity: This refers to whether or not the results from an assessment agree with a different criterion, for example the teacher’s own judgements concerning ability. If, in a teacher’s judgement, a student underperforms on an assessment, then it may be worth considering whether the issue was the assessment itself.
4. Predictive Validity: This is where the validity of an assessment is determined by its ability to predict future attainment. Many classroom assessments are intended to be cumulative, in that they lead towards a final grade. A question of concern here is how valid is an assessment task at marrying up its results to final attainment?
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5. Construct Validity: ‘… requires a clear and accurate definition of the domain being assessed so that the assessments test the construct and not something else’ (James, 1998 p.154). A simple definition of a construct is that it is a specific concept or skill. The effect of this in validity terms is that in practice this becomes a more complex version of face validity, but one where there is a mismatch between different constructs.
6. Internal Validity: ‘Basically it refers to the soundness of an explanation (i.e. whether what is interpreted as ‘cause’ produces the ‘effect’)…’ (McCormick & James, 1983 p.174) For many teachers this can have implications as to whether the assessment is in agreement with itself, in other words is the effect directly attributable to the cause in question. Here the issue can relate to what prior knowledge a student brings with them to an assessment. This is an example of a different cause producing the effect.
7. External Validity: this is concerned with whether the results of an assessment are generalizable, whether they can then be applied across a range of contexts
Another form of validity, consequential validity, is also worthy of consideration. This is rather different to the list above in that it refers to the ‘…worth of assessments in terms of their social, personal and educational consequences’ (James, 1998 p.155). This places this form of validity into a slightly different league to the others, as Shepard observes: ‘As a short hand, consequential validity is now used by many to refer to the incorporation of testing consequences into validity investigations. Most measurement specialists acknowledge that issues of social justice and testing effects are useful ideas, but some dispute whether such issues should be addressed as part of test validity’ (Shepard, 1997 p.5). As educators we are aware that many forms of assessment have social consequences, whether or not that affects their validity as assessments is what the notion of consequential validity endeavours to address.
All of these forms of validity will occur in varying amounts in any assessment undertaken in and beyond the classroom. The task for the educator when devising and administering any form of assessment is to ensure that there is some attention paid to issues of validity. However, what we need to bear in mind all the time when discussing assessment is that there will always be some form of inaccuracies inherent within it, or as Gipps succinctly puts it, ‘assessment is not an exact science and we must stop presenting it as such’ (Gipps, 1994 p.167).
Dependability
Reliability is often held to be the prime requirement of assessments, so that they can be considered to be replicable across and between contexts. There is an argument which states that reliability is key, because if there are doubts about the replication of an assessment, then there must also be concerns that it is, in fact, measuring that which it purports to be measuring. However, there are problems with this view, as:
…this argument tends to lead to attempts to increase reliability which generally means closer and closer specification, and use of methods that have the least error. It results in gathering and using a restricted range of evidence, leading to a reduction in validity. On the other hand, if validity is increased by extending the range of the assessment to include outcomes such as higher level thinking skills, then reliability is likely to fall, since many of these aspects of attainment are not easily assessed. (Harlen, 2005 p.247)
This raises a very pertinent discussion of a problem for education, as, in efforts to increase reliability, it is all too easy to fall back upon things which are easily assessable, which, whilst probably reliable, are not necessarily valid in measuring aspects of learning.
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So far reliability and validity have been presented as independent constructs. However, there is also a relationship between the two, and they do need to be considered in terms of how they interact with each other. As Mary James observes:
Broadly speaking, reliability is a property of the assessment procedures themselves, whereas validity is a property of the information they produce. (James, 1998) p.158)
Because of this interaction between the two, the notion of dependability is often used. Wynne Harlen describes this as ‘the extent to which reliability is optimised while ensuring validity’ (Harlen, 2007) p.24). The issue at stake for educators is which of the two areas of reliability and validity take priority in considering dependability of assessments. Whilst striving for the highest possible property of each is clearly going to be the aim, nonetheless this does not mean that teachers should re-think assessments root and branch. Formative assessment can have a high degree of validity, but, because it does not go beyond the students in question, can be low in reliability, but we do know that formative assessment is key to making improvements in learning.
Finally, a key question for educators to ask is “who is the assessment for?” Fautley (2010) presents this diagrammatically thus:
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Here, pupils can be taken to mean students too. This is another key question for educators. Assessment designed to help learning may be very different from one whose intention is to produce a final grade, and so part of any discussion concerning assessment needs to address this at an early point in its formulation.
Useful References:
Black, P. (1995). Can teachers use assessment to improve learning. British Journal of Curriculum and Assessment, 5(2), 7-11. Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. London: School of Education, King's College. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2000). Research methods in education (5th ed. ed.). London ; New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Fautley, M. (2010). Assessment in Music Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fautley, M., & Savage, J. (2008). Assessment for Learning and Teaching in Secondary Schools. Exeter: Learning Matters. Gipps, C. (1994). Beyond Testing: Towards a theory of educational assessment: London: Falmer Press. Graue, M. (1993). Integrating theory and practice through instructional assessment. Educational Assessment, 1(4), 283-309. Harlen, W. (2007). Assessment of Learning. London: Sage. Harlen, W., & James, M. (1997). Assessment and Learning: differences and relationships between formative and summative assessments. Assessment in Education, 4(3), 365-379. James, M. (1998). Using Assessment for School improvement: Oxford: Heinemann Educational. McCormick, R., & James, M. (1983). Curriculum evaluation in schools. Beckenham Kent: Croom Helm. Shepard, L. (1997). The Centrality of Test Use and Consequences for Test Validity. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 16(2), 5-13. Shepard, L. (2002). The Role of Assessment in a Learning Culture. In C. Desforges & R. Fox (Eds.), Teaching and Learning (pp. 229-253). Oxford: Blackwells. TGAT. (1988). Task group on Assessment and Testing: A report: London: DES. Torrance, H., & Pryor, J. (1998). Investigating formative assessment: Buckingham: Open UP. Wiliam, D. (2000). Integrating summative and formative functions of assessment. Paper presented at the Keynote address to the European Association for Educational Assessment, Prague, Czech Republic. Wiliam, D. (2000). The meanings and consequences of educational assessments. Critical Quarterly, 42(1), 105-127.
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Student centred assessment – challenge questions
Aspect Questions Response and Action
What What exactly is being assessed?
- Behaviours? - Skills? - Knowledge? - Understanding? - Theory? - Application of all the above in practical, work-
based learning contexts
Assessment values What is valued and how is this assessed?
- what does assessment foreground and background?
- what goes un-assessed? - Does anything valuable fall outside the formal
assessment process? And what might be the impact of this?
Understanding How is workplace learning understood by different agents within the community:
- students - teachers/tutors - employers - employees working aside students
Progression Is assessment accumulative or atomised?
What’s the relationship and balance between formative and summative assessment?
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Aspect Questions Response and Action
Who? What different roles do different stake-holders take enact in assessment processes and protocols?
What different roles are taken up by
- students (as objects of assessment and participants in assessment i.e.peer or self review)
- teachers/tutor - people in the workplace
Quality and Criteria
To what extent do participants in assessment (as above) share common understanding of the function and outcomes of assessment?
To what extent do participants in assessment (as above) share common understanding of what ‘high quality’ looks like?
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Appendix 1
Action plan template
Focus Area Which aspect of the framework are you focusing on?
Proposed Action What specific action do you want to take? And by when?
Success Criteria What does success look like? How will you know you’ve been successful?
Responsibility Who will need to be involved? Who will lead in relation to this specific action?
Resources What existing resources will you need? What new resources will you need?
Monitoring How will you monitor progress?
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