Why should law schools focus on general transferable skills?

(Transcript of a section of the General transferable skills report, 1998)

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What is our objective?

Discussions in our core group and in the workshops suggests three possible objectives for the development of general transferable skills:

1. We may wish that students should attain a certain level of achievement in a number of specific skills, and the outcome statements are set out in that way. There is a standard of achievement specified at both basic and advanced level, together with some illustrations of the kinds of activity in which students might engage and the kinds of evidence they might thus be able to produce to demonstrate their attainment. A law school might choose to promote the achievement of certain of these skills among its students at a specified level.
2. We might simply wish students to be exposed to a range of experiences which may enable them to enhance their skills. The onus is then on the student to take advantage of this opportunity. A law school might facilitate this process by offering students a progress file or some other method for recording their achievements so that they can make use of this information when applying for jobs or further study.
3. If skills are a language for talking about achievement, then we might want students to be able to internalise that language in discussing their learning. On this approach, students will be expected to appropriate and make use of a set of criteria for judging their own achievements. They would be required to be able to demonstrate the use of these evaluative criteria in a self-aware way. The emphasis is on the process of using the criteria, rather than necessarily attaining a specified outcome level. A student who is aware that he has poor oral communication skills has achieved what is expected on this account, even if he still has to work further to attain what is regarded as a basic level of achievement in that skill. Such an approach might be linked to the second objective above, though it is possible to require students to reflect not only on exercises within the law curriculum, but also on extra-curricular activities. On the other hand, a law school might wish to ensure that students used this reflective approach to devise strategies to attain specified levels of achievement, so the approach could be linked to the first objective.

There can thus be a significant difference between requiring that students undergo a specific process and requiring that they attain a specified level of competence in a particular skill.

The rationale

There are a variety of rationales which can be presented and which can help us to choose between the different objectives set out in the previous section.

1. The rationale set out in Dearing and in the various publications by employers and the DfEE is that students need general transferable skills to be employable. Mass higher education should contribute to the employability of graduates not simply by giving them a degree, but also by the content of the education which they receive. General transferable skills are an integral part of that content which enhance the employability of students. Particularly when many jobs are in small and medium enterprises with limited training opportunities and organisations, it is not sufficient for higher education to suggest that skills training should be postponed to postgraduate vocational training or courses.
2. A pedagogic rationale would be that many of the skills identified under the umbrella of general transferable skills are actually useful to give students self-confidence and encourage enthusiasm in their learning within higher education. Mass higher education requires a great deal of independence and self-motivation from students. Their abilities to use IT, to engage in self-evaluation, to present their ideas orally and in writing are essential to succeed in the learning environment which is increasingly limited in resources and available staff time. The skills achievements might thus be set at the end of level 1 in order that a student could be successful within the programme of study in higher education, rather than being focused on what is needed at the end of the programme for future employability.
3. A connected pedagogical rationale would be to focus on the need for the student to be self-aware and able to set her own objectives for learning. Under this model of self-awareness, evaluation and action planning, the student must be able to engage in the process of being a reflective (lifelong) learner and specific achievements are not the primary concern. Again this process is something which is essential for success within the programme study in higher education and so a basic level ought to be achieved by the end of level 1.

The choice of rationales will depend largely on the mission and situation of a particular institution or law school. It is clear that the national debate is very much in terms of employability, while the internal academic rationale focuses primarily on what is necessary within academic study. The notion of the reflective (lifelong) learner does offer a bridge between the internal imperatives of higher education and the external requirements of the world of work.

What is to be assessed?

From the previous two sections it follows that any report made by a law school on a student’s performance in general transferable skills could be concerned either with the processes which a student has experienced, or with an ability to be self-reflective, or with achievement in a number of more specific skills. The crucial aspect is that any assessment, report or evaluation should be consistent with the objectives set for developing the general transferable skills of students.

It was a commonplace of the workshops that assessment is a major motivator to student learning. Under pressure of time, students deploy their efforts where this will achieve results which get them closer to their own objectives, for example a class 2.1 degree.

Any assessment or certification of achievement in general transferable skills should fit within that perspective. If learning skills are important, they should be recognised as such within the programme of study as something meriting time and effort and where good achievement is rewarded in a tangible way.

It may not be appropriate that specific marks are given for achievement in skills which contribute to classification, but at the very least the recognition of achievement should be recognised in a way which is valued by the student and the institution.

If the objective of promoting general transferable skills is internal to higher education, then it is important that achievement is given specific recognition or, at least, the pay-off for achievement is clear. If the objective is to improve employability, then it must be clear how this is achieved, for example a demonstration of how this improves the writing of a curriculum vitae.

Formal acknowledgment through some kind of paper qualification is not the only way forward, but it may have more of a motivating effect than a personal record kept by the student, but which no one else sees or comments upon.

What does developing general transferable skills involve?

It must first be acknowledged that skills are not developed in a once and for all fashion. There may be a moment at which the development was formally started, but there needs to be both practice and further development at later stages.

Whatever the objectives set, it is clear that students need to be given a number of opportunities to develop their skills, a series of experiences through which they can practice and develop consciously the skills. It is not sufficient that they learn a set of concepts or a language to describe such experiences.

The learning cycle may well be a movement from experience to theory, rather than the more traditional academic approach of learning theory before application. Thought needs to be given to whether particular kinds of learning activities will be good at promoting the transferability of a skill or whether the learning will be so context-specific that the learner will be inhibited from appreciating the transferability of the skill developed.

The design and creation of such learning events, and the support given to students in developing the skills and in evaluating their own performance, require skills of staff with which many do not feel comfortable. They also require considerable resources, particularly in the developmental stage.

The applicability of the input and content of law courses to non-legal arenas will require staff to become familiar with these. If the management of student learning is the principal role of the staff member in a mass higher education system, it requires a set of pedagogic skills in addition to knowledge of the subject, just as conducting a large lecture or a seminar group requires additional skills.

The difference is that the staff member is not only using those additional skills for her own performance; she is expected to support students in acquiring a set of skills as well as knowledge. As is clear from the interviews with recent graduates, there are questions to be raised about the credibility of staff in performing this role and in the evaluations which they make of students.

To a significant extent, the staff member must have the skills in a conscious way in order to support students as they develop their own competence. It is for such reasons that some skills development is left to general university services, rather than law schools.

Integration or distinct activities?

The view emerging from workshops and discussions is that, for both staff and students, a critical motivating feature will be the extent that the development of skills is part of the learning of the academic subject. For both, relevance will typically be seen in terms of how the performance of the skill improves the learning of the subject. Given that students aim to go into the legal profession, the skills must not be seen as too remote from this.

The examples of practice and those presented at workshops predominantly focused on linking the development of skills to particular modules. In terms of motivation, there are clear advantages in getting students to make the link between the development of skills and enhancement of their success in the study of their subject, but there are two sets of problems associated with this integration approach.

The first problem is that conscious development of skills requires induction, support and feedback which in turn requires special attention and efforts from students and staff which will inevitably take time. The result is that not only that specific attention to skills needs to be offered by staff and students, but that the content of the course needs to be adjusted.

One cannot expect to cover as much detailed knowledge in a module which also tries to develop a specific skill. The students may be able to learn some aspects of knowledge in depth as a result of student-centred learning, but the range of content needs to be adjusted.

In addition, the learning of skills needs to be planned. Under the traditional law degree, certain skills, especially written communication, are developed and assessed to a very great extent, while others are much less emphasised. A more conscious development of a range of skills requires greater attention to the moments for induction and development of specific skills.

Under schemes such as those in De Montfort and Newcastle particular skills are associated with particular modules and these skills are reinforced by modules in a later part of the programme. Such planning can be difficult in joint honours programmes or where students are taking modules from several departments. In such situations, the student needs to be encouraged to plan their acquisition of skills – it cannot be controlled by the law school alone. Skills acquisition requires conscious planning of the structure of student learning.

The second problem is that general transferable skills need to be clearly transferable. To encourage students to think of these skills as transferable, the exercises to develop them should encourage that transferability.

The students need to acquire the confidence in making use of the skills in a variety of contexts. Development merely within the context of one subject is only a limited form of encouragement. The wheeler/dealer exercises at Aston University require law students to make use of their knowledge and skills in an activity together with business studies students. Such an exercise emphasises the transferability of skills and exposes the law students to knowledge from other disciplines to which they can then apply their skills. Integration does not place the same emphasis on encouraging students to develop the confidence in the transferability of their skills.

Incentives

Institutions receive few economic incentives to expand their teaching to include general transferable skills. Funding is received on the basis of student numbers, more or less whatever the syllabus. The support of student learning under Teaching Quality Assessment did contain some oblique references to this issue, but that is now to be abandoned. In its place will be threshold standards for law degrees. These will provide some incentive to include skills, but are only set at a minimal level. It is likely that employers will need to encourage a higher level of attainment.

Individual teachers also require incentives to encourage them to devote the significant amount of time required to design and deliver support for the development of general transferable skills among students. This will often require thought about the balance between content and skills, as well as the appropriateness of particular kinds of content.

In institutions where promotion has predominantly depended on research performance, then the incentives to invest time in teaching excellence have been limited. The development of the Institute of Learning and Teaching may be welcome in redressing this balance. If tangible recognition can be given to innovation in teaching, either by higher levels of membership of the Institute or by prizes, then there will be greater incentives to engage in this kind of activity.

Last Modified: 30 June 2010