developing professional researchers: research students’ graduate attributes

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Developing professional researchers:research students’ graduate attributesCatherine Manathunga a , Paul Lant a & George Mellick aa University of Queensland , AustraliaPublished online: 20 Feb 2007.

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Developing professional researchers:

research students’ graduate attributes

Catherine Manathunga*, Paul Lant and George MellickUniversity of Queensland, Australia

The impetus to broaden the scope of research education is not new. Since the 1970s, concern has

been expressed about the suitability of research education as preparation for a research career

outside academe. Universities have been criticized for producing over-specialized research

graduates, who struggle to apply their expertise to new workplace problems and agendas. These

concerns have been heightened by the demands of the knowledge economy. One approach that

may begin to address these concerns is to design a systematic program to develop research

students’ graduate attributes. While much attention has focused on developing undergraduate

generic attributes, it is only recently that universities and governments have sought to identify and

develop research higher degree students’ graduate attributes. This article seeks to explore the

development of a research student portfolio process (called RSVP), which was originally developed

in the Advanced Wastewater Management Centre (AWMC), and subsequently modified and

applied across an Australian research-intensive university.

Research higher degree programs, particularly doctoral degrees, seek to transform

students into highly proficient, independent researchers, capable of adapting to a

range of employment destinations and taking up leadership positions in academe,

industry and the professions. Increasingly, these research graduates need a variety of

interdisciplinary knowledges, skills and attitudes to thrive in the twenty-first-century

knowledge economy (Gibbons, 1998; Nowotny et al ., 2001). While it is a contested

concept, the knowledge economy notion argues that post-modern economic growth

depends upon highly skilled workers who are able to synthesize and apply their

interdisciplinary knowledge and skills to create innovation and quality improvement

in a context of continuous and rapid change (Brown & Hesketh, 2004). Many

commentators argue that traditional Ph.D. programs are too narrow, lacking broad

professional development opportunities and producing overly specialized graduates

who struggle to adapt to the post-modern workplace (Stranks, 1984; Sekhon, 1989;

Clark, 1996; Kemp 1999a,b). Many doctoral graduates also experience difficulty in

articulating the range of knowledges and attributes they have developed when they

are responding to selection criteria for employment (Cryer, 1998).

*Corresponding author. Teaching & Education Development Institute (TEDI)/Graduate School,

University of Queensland, Q 4072, Australia. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 0158-037X (print)/ISSN 1470-126X (online)/07/010019-18

# 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/01580370601146270

Studies in Continuing Education

Vol. 29, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 19�36

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While there has been significant educational research conducted into the

identification, mapping and development of graduate attributes for undergraduate

students (Bowden et al ., 2000; Barrie, 2004; Bath et al ., 2004; Leggett et al ., 2004;

Sumsion & Goodfellow, 2004), developing research students’ graduate attributes is a

more recent concern. This article seeks to explore the development and broad

implementation of a research student portfolio process (called the Research Student

Virtual Portfolio*/RSVP1) developed in a small research centre at an Australian

research-intensive university and then extended to diverse disciplinary and inter-

disciplinary settings within the same institution.

Producing professional researchers

Explorations of doctoral pedagogy are relatively recent and highly contested.

Only a few scholars (Pearson & Brew, 2002; Manathunga, 2005) have explicitly

sought to draw upon pedagogical theories about cognitive apprenticeship (Collins

et al ., 1989) and legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) to

investigate teaching and learning in research studies. In countries where the

traditional British model of Ph.D. by thesis or creative work is used, research

higher degree programs operate with a nebulous, implicit curriculum (Delamont

et al ., 2000; Acker, 2001), tailored to individual students’ learning needs. This

perhaps goes part of the way towards explaining why students appear to have

such difficulty in articulating and reflecting upon their attributes as professional

researchers (Cryer, 1998; Delamont et al ., 2000). Very often research graduates

are more likely to rely on disciplinary descriptions of their professional identity

and to point to their thesis or creative work as evidence of their knowledge and

skill as professional researchers. These strategies create difficulties for research

graduates when they are seeking employment outside academe. Even within

academe, selection criteria require graduates to describe not only their knowl-

edge and expertise but also their communication and team-working skills

(Osborn, cited in McWilliam et al ., 2002).

Research indicates that employers are fundamentally interested in graduates’

abilities to formulate and solve problems, to communicate and to manage and

lead projects (Sekhon, 1989; Clark, 1996; Bowden et al ., 2000; Bath et al .,

2004; Leggett et al ., 2004; Sumsion & Goodfellow, 2004). They are seeking

graduates who are able to apply their disciplinary-based research expertise

flexibly to other contexts and problems (Holdaway, 1996; Cryer, 1998; Pearson

& Brew, 2002; Usher, 2002; Borthwick & Wissler, 2003). Increasingly, employ-

ers are also seeking graduates who can understand and apply a range of

international and interdisciplinary perspectives (Klein, 1996; Gibbons, 1998;

Barnett, 2000; Bruhn, 2000; Somerville & Rapport, 2000; Brainard, 2002;

Evans, 2002; Usher, 2002).

20 C. Manathunga et al.

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Research students’ graduate attributes*/tensions and dilemmas

A growing number of scholars have begun investigating how we can produce research

graduates able to demonstrate and articulate the skills that employers desire

(Holdaway, 1996; Cryer, 1998; Pearson & Brew, 2002; Borthwick & Wissler,

2003; Gilbert et al ., 2004; Kiley et al ., 2004; United Kingdom GRAD programme,

2004). These scholars adopt varying approaches to research graduate attribute

development that will be explored below. In designing RSVP, we have sought to

wrestle with some of these inherent difficulties and tensions. These problems include

philosophical dilemmas, problems in identifying and individualizing graduate

attributes and implementation issues.

Firstly, there is a debate about whether articulating separate attributes is overly

reductionist and instrumental. Some supervisors argue that graduate attributes

‘homogenise [students] and remove creativity and individuality’ (Biology supervisor

cited in Gilbert et al ., 2004, p. 375). Others argue that the graduate attribute agenda

can restrict the development of a holistic picture of graduates as accomplished

researchers (Sandberg, 2000; Gilbert et al ., 2004). Gilbert et al . (2004) point to the

irony of arguing that research graduates should develop a set of common skills when

the fundamental goal of research degree programs is that students make an original

contribution to knowledge.

There is no doubt that strong government and employer support for the graduate

attributes agenda is situated within neoliberal, utilitarian approaches to research

‘training’. These perspectives tend to support dated notions of professional

education as involving ‘step-wise, cumulative’ knowledge and skill in ways that are

largely decontextualized from practice (Ericsson & Smith, 1991; Hoffman, 1992;

Sternberg et al ., 2000; Sternberg & Ben-Zeev, 2001). They represent a rationalistic

view of education, where the focus on acquiring measurable attributes results in

simplistic understandings of professional expertise (Sandberg, 2000; Gilbert et al .,

2004).

On the other hand, research into student perceptions (Borthwick & Wissler, 2003)

and evidence collected as part of this project indicates the depth of support students

and graduates have for the graduate attributes agenda. For example, one student

commented that he believed ‘these g[raduate]a[ttributes]s are things that would

make me more employable’ (AWMC email, 5 March 2003). After all, research

students’ fundamental goal is to achieve stable, challenging employment or

advancement in their careers. So too, research in Australia and the UK has

established the importance of assisting research graduates to enhance their knowl-

edge of and ability to articulate the particular general attributes they have developed

during their research studies (Cryer, 1998; Borthwick & Wissler, 2003).

This is not to argue that research education should be reduced to simplistic

attempts to quantify the development of generalized skills to service a rapacious

knowledge economy. The creative and embodied production of qualified resear-

chers can continue to occur through students’ intensive enculturation into the

practices and discourses of their disciplines (Delamont et al ., 2000). Through

Developing professional researchers 21

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a process of intense engagement with their supervisors and the broader research

culture, research students usually adopt disciplinary ways of knowing, thinking,

acting and being. While these remain fundamentally significant aspects of research

education, they do not necessarily enable students to adopt the discourses of

employers. While it may be controversial to suggest that students should, when

appropriate, engage in the discourses used by employers, they generally require a

certain level of familiarity with this kind of language if they are to respond

successfully to job selection criteria and obtain meaningful employment.

We have attempted to retain the individuality of each research student’s

developmental journey by designing the RSVP process as a tailored developmental

plan where students and their supervisors collectively identify students’ existing

strengths and areas for improvement and their own unique career goals. This also

goes some way towards addressing Gilbert et al .’s (2004) concern about which

attributes represent minimum requirements and which could be considered optional.

While most researchers have argued against ‘bolt-on’ short courses (e.g. United

Kingdom GRAD programme) for developing students’ graduate attributes, many

still struggle with how this development might be effectively embedded within

students’ research projects (Cryer, 1998; Pearson & Brew, 2002; Borthwick &

Wissler, 2003; Gilbert et al ., 2004). RSVP has been designed to engage students and

supervisors in a dialogue and planning process about how each of the graduate

attributes that have been translated into local, disciplinary dialects can be achieved

through the student’s engagement in the research process. Many other researchers

leave the collection of evidence of students’ graduate attributes to students

themselves. This has generally not served research students well, as they continue

to struggle to articulate how the writing of a thesis or the production of creative work

enables them to demonstrate the specific, transferable research skills and attributes

referred to in employment application processes.

Research context and methodology

The RSVP process has been progressively developed, refined and adapted across a

number of disciplines at an Australian research-intensive university. This article will

explore its original development, trial, evaluation and revision in the Advanced

Wastewater Management Centre (AWMC) (Manathunga, 2003). It will then

examine briefly how it was modified and implemented in Animal Studies and

several Health Science fields. It will also show how RSVP preceded and then

informed the development of the university’s recent policy on research students’

graduate attributes (http://www.uq.edu.au/hupp/index.html?page�/25167&pid�/

25141).

RSVP was originally designed and implemented in a small, interdisciplinary

research centre, the AWMC. The AWMC is a small, innovative research centre

where researchers and research students work to develop effective, sustainable

solutions to the management of wastewater using the interdisciplinary skills of


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microbiologists, chemical engineers and some social scientists. Established as a

research centre in 1996, the centre at the time of the research had five academic staff,

five postdoctoral and five other research-only staff, 20 Ph.D. students, 10

international visitors and three administrative staff. The majority of these researchers

and students were involved in the various stages of developing, trialling, evaluating

and revising the RSVP process.

In designing this graduate attribute process, our research team was seeking to

achieve the following objectives:

1. A systematic method for contextualizing broad generic attributes in specific

disciplines/interdisciplines.

2. An individualized process for enhancing graduate attribute development that

went beyond a skills audit approach and was flexible enough to respond to

diverse students’ pre-existing skills and desired career goals.

3. A process intimately linked with each student’s research project.

4. An effective method of documenting and storing evidence of students’

achievement of graduate attributes that would assist them in applying for jobs.

An action research, participatory methodology was employed to achieve these

objectives. Specifically, this consisted of:

. two focus groups to identify and agree upon the particular graduate attributes the

AWMC wanted to develop in its research graduates;

. a sub-committee of researchers and students to design the process;

. interviews with one postdoctoral fellow and one research student;

. two further focus groups with researchers and students to resolve concerns of both

groups prior to the trial of RSVP;

. trial of RSVP by 11 research students, four supervisors and two research-only

staff;

. feedback from researchers and research students (including those who did not

participate in the trial) about further improvements to the process;

. revision of RSVP for further trials in other disciplines across the university.

Data were collected from all of these activities, allowing for a triangulation of

perspectives (e.g. students, supervisors, postdoctoral fellows) and a triangulation of

methods (e.g. documentary analysis, focus group outcomes, interviews). At all stages

of the project, data were collected and analysed not only by the interdisciplinary

research team but also by AWMC supervisors, postdoctoral fellows and students.

Ethical clearance was obtained from the relevant university ethics committee. All of

the participants signed consent forms covering all aspects of their involvement in the

project. Additional special permission was granted by the students whose de-

identified reflective review sections and action plan are quoted below. A total of seven

individual students, four supervisors, one postdoctoral fellow, and comments from

two separate focus groups from the AWMC are quoted in this article.


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Research Student [Virtual] Portfolio

RSVP consists of a:

. set of research students’ graduate attributes;

. reflective review tool that translates these attributes into the local disciplinary/

interdisciplinary dialect and lists ways in which students can demonstrate each

graduate attribute;

. portfolio based on evidence of the achievement of the graduate attributes;

. resource package for students and supervisors;

. training program for supervisors.

The identified list of graduate attributes included those items listed in Table 1.

The research team acknowledged that the broad description of these attributes is

of little use to students and supervisors so they designed a reflective review tool that

translated each graduate attribute into a full interdisciplinary description and

explored how each attribute could be achieved. Interdisciplinary research skills,

attitudes and behaviours feature in each of these graduate attributes. To illustrate the

process used, the development of communication skills will be outlined in full.

While a great deal of attention is placed on communication skills at any level of

higher education, there have been only a few attempts to define precisely what these

skills involve at the research higher degree level (Borthwick & Wissler, 2003). In

addition, UK research conducted by Cryer (1998) has suggested that many research

students are unable to articulate the exact nature of their highly developed

communication skills and how these might be transferred to various workplace

settings and professions. Table 2 identifies the nature of these skills in the AWMC

context and how these could be demonstrated.

Designing and using the reflective review tool

A two-step process was constructed. This involves students completing a reflective

exercise each year with their supervisor as part of the annual review process. It also

enables students to construct a portfolio or career development tool that organizes

and documents their continuous development of graduate attributes. This builds

Table 1. Attributes of research graduates

1. Problem solving and problem formulation from different perspectives

2. Communication skills

3. Project management skills

4. Industry focus and/or professional experience

5. Understanding and applying multiple disciplinary and international perspectives

6. High-quality research skills

7. Expert integrated knowledge

8. Social, ethical and environmental responsibility


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Table 2. Communication skills in an AWMC context

Description How this could be demonstrated

To express an idea: The student has:

. The student will be able to present their work

in several forms (written, spoken or graphically)

in different contexts and to different audiences

. The student will have gained experience in

teaching/training and supervision of people

. Effectively presented their work at internal seminars and/or conferences, congresses, etc.

. Clearly expressed their ideas and results (orally and in PowerPoint), gathered feedback,

and demonstrated how they have improved their presentation skills based on this feedback

. Written well-structured, highly effective reports/papers and indicated their attempts to

improve their writing skills

. Demonstrated the ability to plan and organize lecture, tutorial or training sessions and

develop and deliver effective training materials and activities

. Facilitated the successful completion of honours projects as honours supervisors

. Disseminated special skills such as statistical analysis methods to other students

To understand and value other knowledge: The student has:

. The student will be able to read, listen to

and appreciate other people’s ideas

. Compiled an interdisciplinary literature review that will provide them with ways to expand

their own work

. Applied other disciplines’ languages and concepts to their work

. Actively participated in meetings and seminars showing that they understand other

people’s perspectives

. Emailed other experts in their field after being introduced by their supervisor, keeping the

supervisor in the loop with email communications

. Received tutor training and been involved in teaching and postgraduate supervision

Working in interdisciplinary teams to develop

social skills, self-confidence and conflict

resolution and negotiation skills

The student has:

. Shown effective participation in team work by giving input to the general project and

applying the outcomes to their own work

. Established a bridge between different perspectives as a result of their developing

interdisciplinary knowledge

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upon the reflective approach initially advocated by Cryer (1998). The involvement of

the supervisor/s in the process is also regarded as important (Borthwick & Wissler,

2003). In order to demonstrate how RSVP has been tailored for research students at

very different stages of their professional careers, two case studies from the initial trial

in the AWMC have been included. These students gave additional permission for the

authors to include excerpts from their reflective reviews after they had completed

them. In particular, these case studies demonstrate that the RSVP process does not

only support the career development of less experienced students like ‘Ramonez’2

but also enhances the career planning skills of experienced professionals such as

‘Erica’.

Erica

Erica is approximately half way through her doctoral studies and has had a lengthy

professional career. Her sophisticated understandings of practice are evident in her

reflections. She indicated that she considered communication skills to be one of her

strongest attributes:

I have presented my work at seminars . . . and workshops and conferences. As an

experienced [worker], I have developed the ability to actively listen and draw together

ideas. However, both my written and verbal communication would benefit from the use

of mind mapping to structure the approach. My literature review is interdisciplinar-

y . . . and I have maintained contact with my associate supervisors . . . [in other

disciplines]. I have worked in many teams. (AWMC student, reflective review)

Her supervisor agrees but recommends that ‘we need to think about your ability to

present research outcomes*/this is a very different and difficult skill’ (AWMC

supervisor’s comments on student reflective review).

Ramonez

Ramonez has just commenced her Ph.D. program and has less prior work

experience. She initially sent her supervisor very brief reflections on her commu-

nication skills (indicated in the following by normal type). Prompted for more

information and reflection by her supervisor, she then added the additional

comments (indicated by bold type). She suggested that:

I feel that my communication skills are fine. I have always had the ability to convey

my thoughts and ideas across considerably clearly though I do get exceptionally

nervous during presentations with groups of people larger than say, 20

people . . . I am able to listen to peoples ideas, analyse them and I do find it very

valuable. I have not, as of yet, presented my work at internal seminars or conferences,

but I will be presenting [soon] I will gather feedback on my presentation . . . I do

participate in other disciplines seminars (though they have been restricted to my

friends’ first year reviews) and do have a general idea of their jargon. I will have to

make sure that I make an effort to look into the seminars that are presented in

[another School]. Also, I am hoping that spending time with [postdoc in


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another discipline] will allow me to get immerse myself into another field of

science and allow me to understand an area that I have previously not been

interested in. Lastly, I have had to organise a tutorial and feel that I would be fine if I

had to organise a lecture on a subject that I am familiar with. I’ve already learnt from

tutoring that there is no better way to understand a subject than actually

teaching it. (AWMC student, reflective review)

Her supervisor responded by agreeing that her

oral communication skills*/one to one*/are excellent. This is a very powerful

tool . . . however, from a PhD point of view, it is important that you develop a high

level of ability in technical communication . . . We need to develop an action plan to help

you to develop your skills in this area. (AWMC supervisor’s comment on student

reflective review)

Following the review, students and supervisors then negotiated an action plan that

identified specific activities that students would undertake to develop each graduate

attribute systematically. We have selected Erica’s action plan as an illustration

because her story is illustrated above and her action plan was particularly well

developed. Erica decided to focus on the items listed in Table 3 to further develop

her communication skills.

Table 3. Excerpt from Erica’s action plan (completed and reviewed four months later*/see bold

type)

GA Action Who When

3. Communication

skills

Improve communication of

structured/detailed research

methodology and outcomes,

using key messages, via:

Have refined presenta-

tion of research out-

comes

a. 2 presentations to

AWMC*/on research metho-

dology & research outcomes

Student As negotiated in seminar

program

b. Publication in international

journals such as Water 21

and Water International

Student Submit when data available

c. Presentation at an interna-

tional conference e.g. IWA

World Water Congress (Sept

2004) or IWA sustainability

conference (Nov 2004)

Student July 2003 discuss appro-

priate conferences with an-

other lecturer. NO

RESPONSE AS YET

d. Comment in the preparation

of the above

Supervisor As needed


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Portfolio

The portfolio template is currently being developed and piloted in an RSVP trial in a

social science field. It is designed to provide students with a structured physical and

electronic template to organize their evidence of achieving each graduate attribute.

For example, in the graduate attribute on communication, RSVP suggests that

students file copies of written reports and articles, PowerPoint presentations, written

feedback on presentation skills and so on so that they can readily access this evidence

when they are preparing job applications. In this way, it acts as an organizing tool for

students. It is acknowledged that care must be taken in using this portfolio so that it

will adequately capture the level of sophistication that research students achieve.

Research students are capable of accomplishing more than merely listing their skills

in project management, for example. They become ‘skilful performers’ (Pearson &

Brew, 2002, p. 4) and need to convince employers in industry, the professions or

academe of this.

AWMC evaluation and modification of RSVP

During semester 2, 2003, AWMC students and their supervisors implemented the

research student portfolio process as a pilot trial. A signed student�supervisor

contract was also developed because some students expressed concern that their

advisors may be too busy to engage in the reflective review. A further focus group was

held with students and research-only staff to modify the reflective review tool, and

concerns raised by the students were relayed to academic staff. Approximately half of

the research students in the AWMC (11) completed the reflective review process

with four postgraduate supervisors. Responses from eight students are quoted below

and the additional focus group responses reflect general feedback given by all

the students, postdoctoral fellows and supervisors who participated in the study. Five

students who were nearing completion of their research studies elected not to engage

in the process. The remaining three students elected not to participate largely

because their supervisor was not supportive of the process.

One student whose supervisor claimed that she was unable to schedule time to

meet with her was able to engage in the process with a postdoctoral fellow. The

potential role played by postdoctoral fellows in this process is important for a number

of reasons. Firstly, their advice to students is particularly powerful because, as one

postdoctoral fellow emphasized, ‘I feel still very close to the PhD students because I

do the same type of work they do . . . the experience they are going through [is]

fresher in my mind . . . [and] I’m . . . more available’ (AWMC postdoctoral fellow

interview). Secondly, their involvement in processes like RSVP formalizes the

advisory role they often enact with students and gives them valuable supervisory

experience that they can document for their own ongoing career development. In

addition, two postdoctoral fellows completed their own reflective reviews because

they believed that they would serve as a valuable career development tool at their

career stage as well.


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Students’ responses

All of the 11 students participating in RSVP trials indicated how useful it was for

their overall research planning and future career development. In particular, they felt

the reflective review was a useful ‘scoping tool’ and could even be used as a ‘problem-

solving tool’ (AWMC students, student focus group). An AWMC student com-

mented that:

I found this a useful exercise in critically reviewing my development as a graduate . . . It

gave me a useful overall picture of where I was at and where the gaps were . . . It allowed

me to prioritise certain key actions . . . like . . . gaining more international exposure and

identifying an additional mentor or support group. (AWMC, student feedback)

Another student also suggested that RSVP gave students a clearer indication of

exactly what undertaking a Ph.D. involved rather than just knowing they had to

produce a thesis (AWMC student, student focus group). Several international

research students believed that RSVP was relevant across nations and cultures

(AWMC students, student focus group). One student also appreciated the extent to

which the process ‘became embedded in [my] ongoing research activities’, which

made it ‘so sensible and comfortable’ (AWMC, email 21 July 2004). RSVP also

strengthened relationships between students and their supervisors in four cases

(reported by AWMC students, student focus group). For example, one student

commented ‘I got a lot out of my grad attributes discussion with . . . [my supervisor].

I found that he was willing to support me more in what I want to do that [sic] I

previously thought’ (AWMC, email 24 November 2003).

One student emphasized how RSVP had helped him think more broadly about his

discipline. Reflecting about the whole process he argued that RSVP reminded him:

to just be constantly looking at ways and taking opportunities to improve myself as a

researcher and scholar, even if it is not directly related to . . . my project. In a field like

this I need to keep an open mind for new ideas and methods in order to make myself as

attractive a graduate as possible. (AWMC student, 22 February 2004)

Students confirmed the effectiveness of RSVP in helping them plan their future

careers and prepare employment applications. For example, Erica, who was featured

above, is now drawing close to completion. She indicated that she is using RSVP to

plan my post-PhD career. Following planned submission of my thesis in mid-

September, I plan to conduct a speaking tour of several countries . . . with the objective

of . . . landing a desirable position. Many of the locations chosen for presentations were

drawn from the list of key contacts identified in my RSVP. (AWMC, email 21 July 2004)

Supervisors’ responses

Four supervisors involved in the trial commented on the RSVP process. In

particular, one supervisor found RSVP to be a ‘valuable framework for my

supervision’ because it helped her to ‘keep an eye on all areas of [her] students’


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professional development’ (AWMC, supervisor feedback). Another supervisor wrote

that RSVP ‘helped [him] to remember to praise [his] students’ already developed

graduate attributes and their gradual progress . . . this is very motivating for students’

(AWMC, supervisor feedback).

Supervisors found the tool valuable for their own professional development

because it reminded them in a very tangible way ‘to keep planning lots of experiences

and activities for [their] students’ (AWMC, supervisor feedback). Developing RSVP

enabled supervisors to form a shared understanding of the key elements of effective

research education. We observed many passionate debates between supervisors

about the nature of postgraduate supervision and what being a professional

researcher in a discipline meant. One supervisor turned to us after one such debate

and said ‘You know normally we don’t get to talk about supervision . . . we just get on

in our individual way and do it, we don’t usually get to debate it’ (AWMC, supervisor

feedback).

Recommendations to improve RSVP

Students and supervisors, including those who had not participated in the trial, also

made a number of recommendations to improve RSVP, either in focus groups or via

email. Firstly, several students felt that the first six months were too soon to complete

the first reflective review. Instead, it was recommended that supervisors go through

the list of graduate attributes and the reflective review tool with students at the

beginning of candidature, and complete their first reflective review and action plan as

part of the confirmation of candidature process.

Other modifications included:

. revising the order of graduate attributes so that the review process would start with

more familiar goals and work up to the more difficult attributes;

. adding entrepreneurship and commercializing one’s intellectual property to the

industry-focus and/or professional experience attribute;

. condensing the written material contained in the reflective review tool;

. making explicit reference at the beginning of the reflective review tool that this was

intended to be a forward planning exercise;

. recommending that students not attempt to complete the whole reflective review

in one sitting (feedback from AWMC supervisors and students).

RSVP moves into other disciplines

A shorter version of the original collaborative process of translating the list of

graduate attributes into different local disciplinary dialects was then used with one

supervisor and his team of five students in Animal Studies and with two supervisors

and their eight students from two different Health Sciences. RSVP has now been

trialled and evaluated by a total of seven supervisors, 24 research students and two

research-only staff members from a range of disciplines. Although not explicitly


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claiming to be an interdisciplinary area, RSVP confirmed for the supervisor and his

five students in Animal Studies the importance of developing their ability to work

across disciplines in their evolving industry (Animal Studies focus group).

One of the Health Science supervisors used RSVP as a diagnostic tool to ascertain

which particular attributes students wanted assistance with. Her six students

unanimously asked for help in developing their critical analysis skills. As a result,

she developed and facilitated a critical analysis interest group, in which her students

collaboratively developed a shared framework for critiquing literature in their

discipline and practised their critiquing and debating skills on journal articles and

sections of their own writing (Manathunga & Goozee, 2007). Another research

graduate from a social science school indicated that reading the RSVP reflective

review tool helped her to rethink her recent Ph.D. experiences and translate aspects

of her experiences into responses to selection criteria for a research position (social

science graduate, letter from PG Coordinator).

RSVP has been adopted as the university-wide method of embedding UQ RHD

students’ graduate attributes into all Schools’ research programs (see UQ policy

http://www.uq.edu.au/hupp/index.html?page�/25167&pid�/25141). By the time the

extensive trial in a large Social Science field and the international trial at a university

in the United Kingdom have been completed, approximately 150 students from two

universities will have used RSVP.

Discussion

There is still a great deal of work to be done in developing an effective graduate

attribute process for research higher degree students that adequately prepares them

for the workforce, without detracting from their individualized development as

embodied, creative disciplinary scholars. There is no real way to reconcile the

instrumentalist philosophies underpinning the graduate attributes agenda with

more complex sophisticated understandings of the development of professional

expertise (Sandberg, 2000; Gilbert et al ., 2004; Dall’Alba & Sandberg, 2006). The

most effective argument for the introduction of a graduate attributes process for

research students is that it can support traditional research education pedagogical

strategies by making them more explicit and structured.

In this way, graduate attribute processes like RSVP can encourage broad dialogue

between students and supervisors about students’ overall professional development,

taking the focus away from the narrow completion of a research project (Cryer, 1998;

Borthwick & Wissler, 2003). As a result, RSVP may improve supervision relation-

ships and practices by providing explicit frameworks that identify the many roles and

responsibilities of both supervisors and students in research education. In particular,

it underlines the broad mentoring role supervisors need to play in supporting their

students’ transition into professional researchers (Pearson & Brew, 2002;

Manathunga, 2005).


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It may also help to give students more structured and transparent access to

opportunities to engage in the local and international research culture, potentially

improving their enculturation into their discipline or interdisciplines. Identifying in a

structured, systematic way through action plans a sequence of opportunities like

conference attendance, engagement in industry projects or with professional

associations, and the building of professional networks enables students to engage

in the research culture of the discipline. Incorporating these plans into larger school-

based processes like confirmation of candidature and general financial and resource

discussions helps to make school support for research students more transparent and

visible. So too, engaging in graduate attribute processes like RSVP may also enhance

the cohesion and strength of research cultures because they provoke school or centre-

wide debates among students and supervisors about the nature of research

education, the roles of supervisors and the steps it takes to prepare people to

become professional researchers in their fields.

For research students in particular, engaging in graduate attribute processes

should help them to articulate more clearly their abilities to formulate and solve

problems, to communicate effectively in a variety of media and to a range of

audiences, and to manage and lead research projects as well as their in-depth

disciplinary knowledge (Cryer, 1998). RSVP draws upon a number of significant

principles and techniques of professional education and development, which try to

ensure effective, individualized development and enhancement of graduate attri-

butes. Reflective techniques, which are recognized as a fundamental facet of effective

professional practice, are a key feature of the program. Schon (1983) and others

(Cryer, 1998; Bolton, 2001; Evans, 2002) have demonstrated conclusively the

importance of learning to reflect upon and systematically question your own decision

making and actions as a professional. By requiring students to write reflections

on their ongoing development of their attitudes, RSVP aims to ensure that research

students also enhance their ability to become thoroughly professional reflective

practitioners.

The RSVP program also draws upon experiential and active learning techniques

(Brookfield, 1990; Biggs, 1999). Some of the key interdisciplinary research skills,

such as the ability to understand and apply multiple disciplinary and international

perspectives, to be flexible and have a high tolerance for ambiguity, and to develop

social, ethical and environmental responsibility, are essentially about attitudinal

change and development, which rarely can be taught didactically (Clifford, 1998;

Mezirow, 2000). Even some of the more technical skills, such as effective

communication and team working, are best learnt by doing (Jackson & Caffarella,

1994; Evans, 2000). As a result, RSVP situates research students’ graduate attribute

development within students’ individual research projects.

This decision is supported by previous studies of developing students’ skills and

attributes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Pearson and Brew (2002) warn

of the dangers inherent in viewing graduate attribute development as bolt-on aspects

of research education. As Pearson and Brew (2002) indicate, this mirrors the debate

about embedding generic attributes in undergraduate degree programs (see


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Bowden et al ., 2000). Cryer (1998, p. 212) suggests that these skills need to be

embedded within students’ research degree programs so that they are ‘part of the

students’ everyday thinking, help develop proficiency, facilitate transferability, and

develop the habit of lifelong learning’.

The RSVP program further assists this process by providing students with a

portfolio framework within which to organize evidence of their professional

development. This should assist students in preparing employment applications

and responding to job selection criteria. As a result, the RSVP process should help

research graduates to operate effectively as professional researchers in a number of

employment settings including industry and business. Indeed, the boundaries

between industry, the professions and universities are blurring and any researcher

will require the ability to work effectively across and between all of these types of

organizations (Tyler, 1998; Rip, 2004).

A number of dilemmas remain within the research graduate attribute process

that will require additional research to resolve. Firstly, the vexed question of

examining students’ attainment of graduate attributes is difficult to address and

opens up some significant disciplinary differences. In most cases, the students and

supervisors we worked with believed that such an examination would be

unnecessary and inappropriate, especially in areas such as social and ethical

understanding. Students, in particular, were opposed to the inclusion of additional

hurdles in research education, which was already a frenetic experience for many

students.

There was also disagreement in some disciplines about whether graduate attribute

development should be reported on at university level or retained as a private

developmental process essentially between supervisors and students. Essentially,

RSVP has been designed as an individual career development tool that is separate

from university accountability processes, but valid concerns are held about whether

its developmental nature will be preserved in the face of neoliberal government

attempts to over-regulate research training.

Conclusion

In this paper we have outlined in detail the design, implementation, evaluation and

modification of one graduate attribute process, RSVP, in a small interdisciplinary

research centre that has later been applied to different disciplines across an

Australian university. Further internal and international trials will continue to test

the flexibility and effectiveness of the RSVP process and will generate other

questions requiring additional research. This study suggests, however, that the

RSVP process has the potential to become a valuable professional education and

development tool that may assist research students to become proficient, profes-

sional researchers, capable of working in academe, industry or a range of

employment organizations.


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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the work of research assistant Ann Webster-

Wright in this project, which was funded by the University of Queensland’s DVC

Research, Professor David Siddle, and the Director of the Graduate School,

Professor Alan Lawson. They would also like to thank Dr Gloria Dall’Alba for her

insightful comments on an earlier draft. Finally, they would like to thank all of the

staff and students of the AWMC for their enthusiastic involvement in the project and

the students’ willingness to give the authors additional special permission to quote

sections from their reflective reviews and action plan.

Notes

1. This acronym is used throughout this article because RSVP has now become a product with

that name, known across the university in that way, and an application to register this

product name has been made in the process of commercializing it.

2. All names have been changed.

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developing professional researchers: research students’ graduate attributes

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