Developing Professional Qualities in levels 1 & 2 of undergraduate study

Lindy Blair Professional Training Tutor, School of Management, Faculty of Management & Law

Anne Irving E-Learning Adviser, Faculty of Arts & Human Sciences, both University of Surrey

This paper will describe and review the School of Management’s 4-year curriculum framework that holds the professional development of undergraduate students at its core. Building on various School Learning and Teaching initiatives from the past few years, Lindy Blair (SoM Placement Tutor), has developed a 4-year thread that aims to empower and enable students to develop Professional Attitudes, Attributes and Abilities : the 3 A’s.

Barely two years into the 4-year programme, evidence is already emerging that is testimony to what can be achieved prior to placement in terms of a student’s Professional Attitudes, Attributes and Abilities. This is explored with direct reference to visible outcomes at levels 1 & 2 using examples of student perceptions of the importance of this process to the way we prepare them for the workplace.

The paper presents the vision and reviews the curriculum developments carried out by Lindy over the past two years to embed the 3 A’s in all seven undergraduate management programmes, analysing the reasons why it is important, explaining how it can be achieved, the technologies used to assist this process, and what can be done at a practical level. It reflects on the process through which it has been possible to influence the School’s approach to learning and teaching to include the integral development of the 3 A’s at all levels of undergraduate study. Lindy’s concept of ‘whole-life learning’ underpins the embedded approach and this paper seeks to illustrate the effect that this may have on the future provision of central student support.  

Through the agency of the SCEPTrE Fellows network, Anne Irving (FAHS E-learning Adviser) has been a strategic partner in Lindy’s work over the past two years, providing support for the e-learning content of the programme by pooling and extracting resources that were transferable to FAHS disciplines. Motivated by a shared vision while observing the daunting challenge Lindy faced of making it work with cohorts of over 400 Management students and 80 academics, Anne poses questions that will explore how similar outcomes might be achieved beyond the School of Management, from the operational issues that need addressing to how we use limited resources to enable change within the wider university context.

Key words Professional Qualities, PDP, Employability, Curriculum development, Technology, 

Presentation