An optimised competency framework to prepare students for employment

The language of competency is heavily utilised by employers when considering staff selection, appraisal, continued professional development, technical training and personal development. However, students and new graduates are not proficient in this language and therefore face challenges when entering the employment market. Competency frameworks exist in virtually all professional and employment sectors, but are particularly prolific in science, medicine, engineering, computing and IT, where they are often aligned to continuing professional development and certification. In this paper, we present a competency framework developed by adapting a number of existing professional competency frameworks used within the IT industry. Our competency framework is designed to be used by and for students on a degree programme with an embedded work-related learning course. The framework has two specific aims: firstly, that it must be usable by students for self-evaluation and self-regulation purposes, and secondly, that it must allow for the support and dispensing of developmental feedback. We also present the results of a study conducted to test the competency framework with 125 students on a Computing-related degree. Understanding, through cluster and correlation analysis, the way in which students perceive their own competencies has led us to optimise our framework to include the twelve most significant competencies within the Academic, Workplace and Personal Effectiveness categories. In our study, it is the Personal Effectiveness competencies such as ‘self-management’ ‘adaptability’ and ‘integrity’ that feature prominently and it is this category of competencies that students find the most challenging to refine

Classifying and evaluating assessment feedback practices

The provision of assessment feedback to students is an area which has received much interest in modern education, particularly in the Higher Education context. As current pedagogic practices strongly encourage the provision of feedback and given also the advances in digital technology, feedback mechanisms are becoming ever more sophisticated. However, considering that a great deal of effort is expended on timely, actionable and constructive feedback by tutors, the student perception of the value of the feedback given to them is not as positive as it could be. Currently a multitude of feedback practices have been developed and utilised, though with varying degrees of productiveness. Research in this area is understandably extremely broad as subject disciplines, use of technology, assessment types, methods and tools, educator preferences, student audience and peer and self-assessment capability all have a significant part to play. Given that the approaches to providing feedback are myriad, it is desirable to advance a systematic method of understanding the most constructive feedback types. This paper describes the development of a taxonomical classification which provides structure, order and frame to current popular practices that have evolved during the last decade. The taxonomy is then evaluated with the use of dimensions such as effectiveness/impact, satisfaction, adoption/engagement and quantity of feedback. The main finding of the taxonomical evaluation is the significance of developmental feed-forward guidance with which students are able to self-regulate and evaluate themselves. The paper concludes that this powerful combination should underpin further investigations into how assessment and feedback provision can be optimised for the experiential learning domain in general and to the work-based learning area in particular

MMS Extended Mission Design: Evaluation of a Lunar Gravity Assist Option

This paper will describe a study that was carried out on the design of a set of maneuvers that were considered for the later stages of an extended mission of the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. The goal of these maneuvers was to put MMS into a significantly different orbit from those flown heretofore, so allowing science collection in a different region of the magnetosphere. This study was made feasible by the fact that the rate at which fuel is being consumed to maintain small formations on the MMS high-apogee orbit is less than expected pre-flight: the current consumption rate is only about 2 kg/yr/spacecraft. In addition, the spacecraft finished the prime mission with a significant amount of fuel remaining: this was about 1-sigma above the mean when compared with pre-launch Monte Carlo simulations. The resulting situation is similar to that of a libration orbit mission, where station-keeping requires so little fuel that any margin at all will lead to an extensive mission lifetime. In the case of MMS, the spacecraft could, if desired, perform formation flying in the current orbit for several decades. Alternatively, the spacecraft could use a significant fraction of the remaining fuel to perform major orbit modifications, while still leaving enough to conduct formation flying for on the order of a decade. The extended mission maneuvers studied here are further apogee-raises, with the goal of setting up one or more lunar gravity assists. Geometry dictates that a lunar encounter is only achievable when the MMS apogee vector lies approximately in the lunar orbit plane: this limits the possible dates to mid-2021 or early 2027

Learning from Feedback on Work-Related Learning: Skills Acquisition and Reality Check

[EN] An increasingly strong focus of higher education is now placed on the acquisition of skills that will strengthen the employability prospects of learners. This has led to, among other provisions, the embedding of work-related, workbased and project-based components into the academic curriculum for which newer forms of assessment and assessment feedback are necessary. This paper reports on a pilot study which aimsto understand the relationship between learning development in the last stages of an undergraduate’s journey and their first experiences of employment. The study was conducted with a small cohort of computing graduates whose degree includes an embedded final year work-related learning module. The outcome of this study shows that whilst employability skills were reported to have indeed improved through this module, the graduates felt ill-prepared for the productivity demands of the workplace. There was also a strong reflection among them now in employment that an additional exposure, as part of the module, to formal appraisal techniques and competency terminology utilised throughout industry sectors would have had an added benefit.Palmer-Brown, D.; Cai, FF.; Patel, P. (2015). Learning from Feedback on Work-Related Learning: Skills Acquisition and Reality Check. En 1ST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION ADVANCES (HEAD' 15). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 485-491. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd15.2015.33048549

Narrowing the gap in careers in clinical research and academia for healthcare professionals: A scoping review on the role of major funding bodies in the UK

Differential attainment (DA) exists in research and academia, where individuals with protected characteristics face barriers to progression at different stages from selection in training or career pathways through to obtaining funding and getting research published. The causes of DA are multifactorial, however more barriers are associated with an individual’s gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability or other social and economic factors rather than academic factors related to research. DA is seen across medicine and healthcare therefore it is likely a manifestation of wider inequalities experienced by these individuals within society. This scoping review takes a first step at exploring DA through the lens of equality, diversity and inclusion in research and academia, specific to healthcare professionals in medicine, in the UK. Given the paucity of published data, benchmarking and investigation of the causes of DA and access in this area, this review seeks to identify what published reports exploring this issue reveal. There has been mixed success in the area of gender equality with the Athena Swan benchmarking exercise; however differences in outcomes exist within gender when other protected characteristics, such as ethnicity, are also explored. The DA observed among women despite the Athena Swan programme demonstrates other factors such as allyship, apprenticeship, sponsorship and mentoring which may be accessible to some individuals, but not others. Furthermore, ethnicity appears to be a barrier to accessing this form of support, and non-Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) women appear to be more privileged to receiving this type of support. Without more research into the lived experiences of individuals from non-traditional backgrounds at the micro-level, as well as data across the career progression pathway over time at the macro-level, the problem of DA is unlikely to improve. If anything, lack of openness and transparency around such data at an organisational level, may exacerbate the sense of injustice within research and academia among individuals with protected characteristics, especially given that the perceived sense of DA is very real for them. The purpose of this paper is to start the conversation with stakeholders within research and academia, about DA and commence the process of reducing the gap using equality, diversity and inclusion as fundamental concepts for achieving a level playing field for all. This type of accountability is essential for developing trust and in the system. Such open conversations need to happen across every organisation, that is a stakeholder of research and academia in the UK.Peer reviewe