QAA Research Teaching Linkages: Enhancing Graduate Attributes Theme

1. QAA Research Teaching Linkages: Enhancing Graduate Attributes Theme Linda Juleff, QAA Steering Group Representative

2. Scope of the theme • To examine, and to enhance, the extent to which subject based research is being used to support the curriculum at undergraduate and postgraduate level. • To identify how discipline research can be used to help students to develop “graduate attributes”.

3. Definition of research • Practice or consultancy led research • Research of local economic significance • Contributions to the work of associated research institutes, or other universities • Scholarship • Applied research including performances, creative works, and industrial and professional secondments • Boyer’s four scholarships of; discovery, integration, application and teaching.

4. Examples of “Graduate Attributes” - Undergraduate • The ability to identify and analyse problems and issues • The ability to formulate, evaluate and apply evidence based solutions and arguments • An ability to apply a systematic and critical assessment of complex problems and issues

5. Examples of “Graduate Attributes”-Taught Postgraduate • Conceptual understanding that enables critical evaluation of current research and advanced scholarship • Originality in the application of knowledge • The ability to deal with complex issues and make sound judgments in the absence of complete data.

6. Discipline Strand • Engineering and Built Environment • Information and Mathematical Sciences • Creative and Cultural Practice • Arts and Social Sciences • Health and Social Care • Life Sciences • Business and Management • Medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine • Physical sciences

7. Discipline Strand: Purpose and Method • To identify, share and build on good and innovative practice in utilising research-teaching linkages to enhance the achievement of graduate attributes. • Discipline project directors have been appointed to collect information: • from Faculty Executive teams • from academic staff • via questionnaire and/or interview

8. Exercise 1 • What are the most important attributes that economics graduates should have? • How can economics research be included in the curriculum to develop these attributes?

9. Institutional Strand • Focuses on: • institutional management and policies and how these impact on research teaching linkages. • how institutions can (and do) organise their activities in learning and teaching and in research in order to enhance the student experience.

10. Activities • Institutional based discussions: • the university’s overall strategy with respect to research-teaching linkages • the types of research related attributes that learning, teaching and assessment strategies aim to develop in students • the ways in which institutional strategies are informed by and inform faculty/subject level developments

11. Exercise 2 • What incentives exist in your institution to foster the link between research and teaching either generally or in the specific context of economics? • Are there any specific barriers which inhibit the linking of research and teaching?

12. Conclusion • The QAA RTL: EGA theme brings together some of the current debate surrounding graduate skills and attributes. • The main purpose of the theme, however, is to find a clear and transparent link between research and teaching.