General transferable skills: outcome statements

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

The purpose of the seven outcome statements is to identify the principal general transferable skills which are developed in higher education.

The statements cover:

• communication
• problem solving
• autonomy and personal skills
• teamwork
• information technology
• numeracy
• intellectual skills

They suggest appropriate outcomes for achievement by students in higher education, together with illustrations of the kinds of activity which students might undertake to develop these skills and the evidence which they might present to demonstrate their achievements in relation to each skill. The statements then try to define these and to suggest different levels of achievement.

Judging by reactions from those we have consulted the statements seem to be broadly acceptable within the academic community. We have found that the concept of professional responsibility does not find much of an echo in what colleagues think they are developing in law schools, and so it has now been omitted from the list. We have also some trouble in arriving at an acceptable definition of numeracy, but that is because of the contested nature of this skill as an outcome seen as relevant to a law degree.

The content of the list is a choice made by the core group. The group researched a wide variety of lists, but settled on a list which seemed to encompass the essential elements of what is seen as generally transferable. It does not match exactly the Dearing key skills, which he Dearing Report admits are very selective and reduced in scope.

We have revised the skills in the light of two sets of documents. On the one hand there is the work for the DfEE of the South East England and Welsh Credit Consortium, which have tried to produce level statements for higher education. On the other hand, there is the Dearing Report itself. The definitions have been discussed at several workshops and with law colleagues in a number of contexts. We propose them as a reasonable brief, but focused list of the main skills to which students in higher education should aspire.

Levels

Unlike the SEEC and Welsh proposals we have deliberately eschewed setting out levels in the conventional terms of level 1, level 2, level 3 and level M. We believe those levels, familiar within higher education, are appropriate to denote progress in the development of knowledge and in associated intellectual skills, but in the case of general transferable skills they are less appropriate.

In the first place, the development of these skills does not necessarily keep pace with the development of knowledge and intellectual skills. Students may already have an advanced level in information technology before entering higher education, or may only have achieved a basic standard in numeracy at the end of their programme.

By using the labels basic and advanced we have sought to suggest the independence of the levels of development of general transferable skills from progression in subject knowledge and associated intellectual skills, which are more appropriately described in terms of a movement from level 1 to level 2 and so on. What we have tried to do is to express the level of achievement of the typical student, a student achieving in the middle of the second class.

In the second place, we wished to suggest that law schools could appropriately set the outcomes expected in relation to each skill at the end of a programme of study in a way different from subject knowledge. To obtain a degree, a student should have reached level 3 in subject knowledge, but it might be acceptable within an institution to decide that achievement in IT or teamwork should be limited to a basic standard, while achievement in oral and written communication should be expected at an advanced standard.

Respondents to our consultation had different opinions. Many thought that an advanced standard should be expected by the end of a degree in most skills, others thought it should be only at a basic standard. Others considered that there should be different standards expected of different skills, with higher standards of achievement expected in communication than in IT or numeracy.

The statements produced are deliberately modal, set around the 2.1/2.2 borderline. We chose this level, rather than a threshold level, because we believe that this is the level at which staff conceptualise their expectations and communicate them to students. Students in law also use this as a focus for their learning.

Illustrations

The outcome statements contain illustrations of both activities which might be used to develop the skill and the kinds of evidence a student might be able to draw from such activities in order to demonstrate the achievement of the outcome. These are based on what is already done in a number of institutions.

Colleagues were however concerned that the illustrations should not be seen as prescriptive, especially in relation to the evidence offered by students. They were keen to avoid the production of a prescriptive list of performance criteria which could be used as a checklist against which student performance was to be judged. The outcome statements thus described are offered as help to colleagues.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010