Working Together to Achieve Graduate Attributes of Our Students

Graduate attributes are the qualities, skills, and knowledge a university community agrees its students should develop during their time with the institution. Universities are paying more attention to the employability of their graduates since the professional bodies are using employability as one of the key measurements in their accreditation criteria. However the question of "are students, universities and industry seeing the same picture in relation to graduate attributes" remains unanswered. Further there is a lack of strategies on how to achieve graduate attributes. To obtain answers for this question and develop strategies, a workshop was organised to bring the leading industry professionals, students and academics in the Master of Construction Project Management Programme together to define and understand the meaning of "graduate attributes" from their perspectives, and to develop strategies that could assist students in better attaining such attributes during their study at the university and beyond. This paper documents the process, outcomes and implications of the workshop. It is found that the industry leadersʹ perspective highlights the need for students to develop analytical, problem-solving, teamwork, negotiation, communication and leadership skills, as well as inter-personal skills which were addressed in the UNSW graduate attribute guidelines. It is also found that a gap exists between the perspectives of the student, industry and university. Furthermore, it is found that the best strategies to achieve relevant graduate attributes during university study include independent individual learning and collaborative team learning, as well as practical sessions that provide opportunities to interact with industry and gain hands-on experience. The implication is that the design of the programme must be theoretically sound and have a practical orientation. Based on the findings, an ASK (attitude, skills and knowledge) model is developed. It is concluded that while students have a similar perspective to those of university and industry over graduate attributes, it is important that opportunities are provided for students to attain these attributes and students be proactive in achieving the attributes during their study through participation of different types of learning activities.