Using the Student Futures Framework

Advance HE views employability as enabling students to develop “the knowledge, skills, experiences, behaviours, attributes, achievements and attitudes that enable graduates to make successful transitions benefitting them, the economy and their communities”[7].

Reflecting this approach, the University is committed to enabling all students to develop the skills and attributes to become social, economic, and environmentally aware global citizens. The University’s Graduate Attributes relate to 6 broad areas, focused on ensuring that Cardiff graduates are:

• Collaborative
• Effective Communicators
• Ethically, Socially and Environmentally Aware
• Independent and Critical Thinkers
• Innovative, Enterprising and Commercially Aware
• Reflective and resilient

Recognising that students are often balancing a range of competing activities, including studying, work and caring responsibilities, the Student Futures Framework supports two broad approaches to embedding employability:

Curricular activities - the employability activity is delivered as part of a credit-bearing element of the student’s programme of study (e.g. an employability activity utilised as a form of authentic assessment for a module, or a work placement undertaken as part of a professional placement year).

Extracurricular activities - the employability activity is delivered outside of the credit-bearing elements of the student’s programme of study (e.g. participation in a skills workshop, or attendance at an employer presentation).
Many employability activities can be delivered on a curricular and an extracurricular basis (e.g. work-based learning), and the focus of the Student Futures Framework is providing a range of employability activities that enable all students to develop the graduate attributes.

The following schematic summarises how the Framework supports the embedding of employability activities across the whole student experience:

For some students the transition into the world of work will involve them in a business start-up or social enterprise programme. An entrepreneurial mindset is also recognised by employers as adding value to the development of an organisation. Therefore, enterprise and entrepreneurship education form a key part of the Student Futures Framework.

Within the education sector, the established definitions of enterprise and entrepreneurship education are:

“Enterprise can be defined as the generation and application of ideas, which are set within practical situations during a project or undertaking... It combines creativity, originality, initiative, idea generation, design thinking, adaptability and reflexivity with problem identification, problem solving, innovation, expression, communication and practical action” [9].

“Entrepreneurship Education is defined as the application of enterprise behaviours, attributes and competencies into the creation of cultural, social or economic value. This can, but does not exclusively, lead to venture creation. Entrepreneurship applies to both individuals and groups (teams or organisations), and it refers to value creation in the private, public and third sectors, and in any hybrid combination of the three” [10].

In addition, the University recognises the importance of students acting as global citizens, engaging with and valuing cultural difference through practical experience of other countries. Therefore, promoting international mobility activities is another key aspect of the Student Futures Framework, with a focus on “studying, working or volunteering in an international setting for at least two weeks, or gaining other substantive international experience as part of a student’s university experience” [11].

Finally, the role of Student Futures is to support students based on the principles of career guidance defined as follows:
“Career guidance supports individuals and groups to discover more about work, leisure and learning and to consider their place in the world and plan for their futures. Key to this is developing individual and community capacity to analyse and problematise assumptions and power relations, to network and build solidarity and to create new and shared opportunities. It empowers individuals and groups to struggle within the world as it is and to imagine the world as it could be.

Career guidance can take a wide range of forms and draws on diverse theoretical traditions. But at its heart is a purposeful learning opportunity which supports individuals and groups to consider and re-consider work, leisure and learning in the light of new information and experiences and to take both individual and collective action as a result of this” [12].

These definitions underpin the Framework and the approach that Student Futures will take when working with schools. The practical steps required to achieve the ‘Planning for Successful Student Futures’ [9] priorities under the Education & Students Sub-strategy are set out from Stage 2 onwards.

If they are to be impactful, graduate attributes need to be visible to students and the significance of them understood. Ideally, the attributes should be a ‘golden thread’ woven through all aspects of the student experience. Graduate recruiters state that students often have a wealth of achievements and experiences, but they are not able to translate these into the skills and attributes that employers are looking for, and therefore they are not able to articulate them in their CV, LinkedIn profile, applications or at interview.

Many of the attributes will already be embedded in academic programmes, so they need to be surfaced and acknowledged. The recommended approach is to map the attributes against the key
knowledge and skills acquired on completion of the Programme Learning Outcomes, and Student Futures can provide Schools with a template to support the mapping process. Where gaps are
identified, there may be options to embed additional, relevant activities into the programme, or to signpost the extracurricular activities that students can undertake to gain experience relevant to the attributes.

Co-curricular maps have been piloted with 5 schools: LAWPL, CHEMY, MATHS, PHYSX and SHARE (links provided to 2 examples). Each map sets out very clearly what the attributes are, why they are important, where students gain them in their programme of study, and what extracurricular activities are available to further develop attributes or address any gaps. Information is also provided about the support and additional opportunities that can be accessed via Student Futures. The maps are also a tool to support personal tutors and Student Futures staff to have informed conversations with students about their career development. Positive feedback was received from academic colleagues and students, and several improvements were proposed such as a change of name, more granular information, and more live links to further information. Going forward, Student Futures will prioritise the roll-out of this approach with all schools as ‘Graduate Attributes Maps’.

These Graduate Attributes Maps will highlight where opportunities exist to enhance delivery of the attributes within the curriculum. As part of the Education Development Service’s multi-disciplinary approach, Student Futures will provide early input into the programme development and revalidation processes to support schools to create employability and enterprise activities.

The Student Futures Framework is designed to support a shift from working in a responsive and transactional way, to a more strategic approach. The focus of the Framework is embedding employability and enterprise activities in the curriculum that are accessible, impactful and sustainable, and which equip students with the skills and attributes they need for their future career development. There will always be an important role for extracurricular activities, but not all students opt to participate and some are unable to take part due to responsibilities outside of university life, or the need to earn an income.

A key challenge for Student Futures is that it is often the most capable students who use the service and engage with the full range of extracurricular opportunities. Student Futures will prioritise curricular work with schools that are developing new programmes or undertaking revalidation. The team will work in partnership with schools, and can provide consultancy support in relation to embedding employability and enterprise activities into programme and assessment design, and also resources and/or teaching that can be adapted to the relevant discipline.

To facilitate this, they will limit the amount of delivery in schools that is not timetabled for students, as experience shows that these activities are the least well attended and have least impact.

Cardiff University uses The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide (GuG) to benchmark performance, and the University’s KPI for education and students is that all returned subjects will be in the top 25% of The Times GuG subject league tables. One of the metrics that contributes to the GuG ranking is Graduate Prospects, which is derived from the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s ‘Graduate Outcomes’ survey*.

As the Graduate Prospects metric contributes 20% to the overall GuG subject-level score, a strong performance in the HESA Graduate Outcomes survey will support schools in achieving a top quartile position for their returned subjects. Also, as securing graduate-level employment or further study requires students to evidence a range of skills and attributes, performance in the Graduate Outcomes survey is a good proxy measure for embedding employability and enterprise into the student experience. Therefore, the key indicator for measuring the impact of the Student Futures Framework is that all returned subjects should be ranked in the top quartile for Graduate Prospects in the GuG.

The impact of the Framework will be reviewed in the following ways:

• At an institutional level - participation in the Graduate Outcomes survey is overseen by the Graduate Outcomes Steering Group, which reports, via the Successful Student Futures Enhancement Group, to the Education & Student Experience Committee.
• With Academic Schools - via the Annual Review and Enhancement process.

Mobility activities are also key enablers for the development of graduate attributes. The University has a separate institutional KPI in relation to student mobility, which commits to at least 20% of our home undergraduates undertaking mobility activities for a period of at least two weeks during their time at Cardiff [14], and the Framework also contributes to achieving the mobility target.

Cardiff University also recognises that experience acquired via work-based learning supports students to transition into the world of work, and is committed to at least 50% of undergraduate students undertaking a work placement during the course of their studies. The Framework will enable placement and wider work-based learning on both a curricular and extracurricular basis.

Student feedback is also a key way of measuring impact.
For curricular provision, this is collected via the module evaluation process.
For extracurricular activities, Student Futures collects feedback throughout the academic year, at different points of engagement.
This ranges from specific feedback weeks during semesters one and two, which focus on workshop and appointment feedback, to the feedback gathered from every student and employer involved in work experience. Feedback is collated and used to inform the planning process for the following year.

The Student Futures Management Team is also working to develop an ‘Employability Dashboard’. The aim is to combine student data sets on career readiness [15], engagement with Student Futures, placements, international mobility and Graduate Outcomes to provide a complete employability overview for schools, colleges and at institutional level. Data will be provided in a live environment so that it can be ‘sliced’ in multiple ways and cross-referenced with other datasets, such as widening participation characteristics and academic attainment.

*The Graduate Outcomes survey measures the number of first degree, UK domiciled students who are in graduate-level employment or further study 15 months after graduation.

1 Universities UK. (2022). Framework for programme reviews, p.3. Securing a job shortly after graduation’ was the third most important indicator identified by undergraduates when assessing the value and quality of their programmes (65%), after ‘fair assessment and feedback’ (91%) and ‘quality of teaching’ (94%).

2 Tibby, M., & Norton, S. (2020). Essential frameworks for enhancing student success: embedding employability (p.5). York: Advance HE.

3 AGCAS. (2022). The Evolution and Integration of Careers and Employability Education in Universities.

4 AGCAS. (2022). Ibid, p.16.

7 Advance HE (2015) frameworks (02): Embedding Employability in Higher Education

8 Tibby, M., and Norton, S. op. cit (p.5)

9 AGCAS (2022) Embedding Employability in Higher Education (p.28)

10 QAA (2018) Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education: Guidance for UK HE Providers (p.7)

11 Cardiff University (2021) International Sub-strategy https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/documents/2504847-international-sub-strategy

12 Hooley, T., Sultana, R.G. and Thomsen, R. (2017). The neoliberal challenge to career guidance -mobilising research, policy and practice around social justice.