HECSU's PROP Framework: Putting Research Outcomes into Practice

1. HECSUputting research outcomes into practice to help you to: > get to grips with what is going on in contemporary career; > work on that understanding with students, colleagues and managers; > engage a widening range of careers-work help; > track how research can support that thinking; > probe the issues and values of this work; > use HECSU’s ‘PROP’ framework tool to support all of this.

2. how does HECSU do this?supporting practice-based research for research-based practice ‘putting research outcomes into practice’ (PROP) by: > probing key research questions; > identifying useful innovative practice; > setting up a framework linking research to practice. HECSU - Higher Education Careers Services Unitwww.hecsu.ac.uk

3. C: • coverage -facts and factors for students to know; P: • processes - learningskills for students to grasp; I: • influences - emotional-and-social pressures for students to deal with. C I P what framework? aspects of career-management not onlycoverage - what students find out; but alsoprocesses - how they take learning on board; and influences - who and what bears upon them…

4. about the framework what can CPI do? offer you more ways of: > seeing what is going on - ways to describe what is happening in contemporary career; > noticing what to pick up on - ways to explain how things now are and how they are changing; > identifying options for action - ways to anticipatehow one kind of help can be more useful than another.

5. examine the basic ideas by moving on and back in these left-hand screens getting into ‘whys and wherefores’ in the right-hand screen the CPI frameworkfinding what you need the framework is set out as two side-by-side sequences - basic on the left, detail on the right

6. the CPI frameworkexploring the thinking the ‘whys-and-wherefores’ screen links the thinking to reality outcomes, values and issues student stories - saying why this is important what we can do about it underlying realities

7. the CPI frameworkdo something about this underlying tabs enable you actively to explore and respond to the issues return to the basic ideas - on the left publications - where you can find more move on-and-back in these core ideas move on with this line of thought you suggest further thinking take hard copy for colleagues and trainees

8. experience thinking practice probing C: • coverage -facts and factors for students to know; P: • processes - learningskills for students to grasp; I: • influences - emotional-and social-pressures for students to deal with. to know to deal with to grasp back next print add references more back what is CPI? making useful sense of what we know about learning for career-management

9. experience thinking practice probing C: • coverage -facts and factors for students to know; P: • processes - learningskills for students to grasp; I: • influences - emotional-and social-pressures for students to deal with. to know to deal with to grasp back next print add references more back what is CPI? making useful sense of what we know about learning for career-management • experience - opportunity, FaceBook and happiness • She can hardly recognise what her parents say about their own career planning - more than 20 years ago. Even her older sister doesn’t understand what it’s like now. • She’s considering accepting an offer as a post-grad researcher on a short-term, non-renewable contract. She got to know about the possibility on the net. And social networking means she can also chase up people working in the same field - and check out how things are. • Having got the offer she is looking forward to it. It’s bang up her street, and she really wants the job. • But coping with the travel, maintaining home-life, and dealing with the uncertainty make for a lot of stress. She hopes she can keep up her commitment. • But she can see no basis for a long-term career commitment. She wants to keep her options open. She has to keep her own and her partner’s happiness in mind. Her FaceBook contacts say that this job could put all that home-life happiness at risk.

10. what is CPI? making useful sense of what we know about learning for career-management C: • coverage -facts and factors for students to know; P: • processes - learningskills for students to grasp; I: • influences - emotional-and social-pressures for students to deal with. to know to deal with to grasp experience thinking practice probing thinking - the framework as a way of seeing CPI is a framework for thought and action - it maps and signposts what we do. There have been other frameworks - notably ‘the DOTS analysis’ (more about DOTS in ‘probing’). Frameworks like these offer perspectives on our work - ways of seeing. C - coverage sets out a view of what people need to know in order to manage career. A useful appreciation of coverage sets us up to look into issues like : ‘what does she know?’, ‘is that useful?’, and ‘what more might she need to know?’. P – processes are the ‘how’ rather than ‘what’ of learning - learning-to-learn. CPI sets out how people take learning on board – and use it. A useful appreciation of processes sets us up to look into issues like: ‘how much searching has he so far given this?’, ‘how is it she sees it this way?’, and ‘how far can he take control of his own learning?’ I - influences are the emotional-and-social persuaders. CPI sets out feelings, interpersonal influences and group pressures. A useful appreciation of influences sets us up to look into issues like: ‘how important is this to her?’, ‘why does it stir up such conflicts in him?’, and ‘who are the people she is having to deal with in working this out?’. All three perspectives can stir up three attitudes in us: 1. expectation reassures, because it’s what we are ready to see; 2. surprise disturbs, because it’s not; 3. curiosity provokes, because we haven’t seen this yet, but the framework suggests we might. We needs frameworks which expand our expectations, make us more open to surprise, and provoke greater curiosity in us - in practice, in theory and in research. back next print add references more back

11. experience thinking practice probing what is CPI? making useful sense of what we know about learning for career-management C: • coverage -facts and factors for students to know; P: • processes - learningskills for students to grasp; I: • influences - emotional-and social-pressures for students to deal with. to know to deal with to grasp back next print add references more back practice - a LifePlan personal-development module The project is developing a new curriculum module. The three phases are: 1. ‘the university story’ – based on investigations that groups of students carry out for themselves, then assembling and presenting what they find; 2. ‘higher ways of operating’ – an active consideration of what it means to be a university student – and the various purposes that students can recognise; 3. ‘a life-plan in higher education’ – bringing all of this into a basis for personal action, by looking, for example, at how self awareness, work-life balance, membership of other groups and self presentation feature in career management. Much of students’ research is carried out in groups, and much of what they present can usefully call on narrative forms. Key features: > This is the first in a series of four university modules. They progress students from taking responsibility as individuals, to examining professional and civic responsibility, culminating with global and leadership responsibility. > Narrative learning methods are important - to present the content of what is learned; its evaluation & assessment; the engagement of story-telling and visual media; and the development of organisational narratives for the university. > There is coverage of what students need to learn. There are learning-to-learn processes, engaging students in reflection on how they gain that learning. And there is consideration of the emotional-and-social pressures with which students must learn to deal.

12. experience thinking practice probing what is CPI? making useful sense of what we know about learning for career-management C: • coverage -facts and factors for students to know; P: • processes - learningskills for students to grasp; I: • influences - emotional-and social-pressures for students to deal with. to know to deal with to grasp back next print add references more back probing - roots of career development thought The original thinking for career development suggested a pegs-and-holes metaphor - linking each person to a work opportunity. It drew on trait-and-factor thinking, making a matching model for career management (Alec Rodger, 1954 - information about this and other authors in ‘references’). These origins were developed into more subtle and feeling-laden accounts (Anne Roe, 1956; Donald Super; 1957, Peter Daws, 1968). And these accounts formed starting points for the DOTS analysis - which spoke of the need for ‘self-awareness’ - ‘S’, ‘opportunity awareness’ - ‘O’ and ‘decision learning’ - ‘D’. This thinking leans heavily on psychology. But developing British thinking is interested in the impact of social structures. Sociologists question whether free-standing decision-making is possible for a lot of people (Ken Roberts, 1977). However, everybody agrees that career development always involves transitions. And this caused the DOTS analysis to extend the earlier three-fold matching model – it spoke not just of ‘S’, ‘O’ and ‘D’, but also of ‘transition learning’ - ‘T’ (Bill Law & AG Watts, 1977). But new research-and-thinking calls for further extensions. Firstly there are social-and-cultural influences on career management. Secondly it is important to understand not just what people learn but how they learn. And so DOTS, itself an extension of matching theory, now needs further extension (more about how CPI does that in the ‘influences’ and ‘processes’ perspective of CPI). However it is contemporary developments that now makes more thought about these influences and processes urgent. more/…

13. experience thinking practice probing more/… Recent developments include how: > the structures of working life are changing; > the rate-of-change is fast enough to make any resolutions we make now soon out-of-date; > people are gathering information and checking out possibilities in new ways; > stress and anxiety levels around career management are increasing; > the kinds of commitments people now feel able to make to their work are being re-balanced; > people are engaging in this negotiation life-long and life-wide. It is not that thinking and practice has not taken account of all of this. But doing so has stretched DOTS beyond its natural limits – it is bursting at the seams. CPI is a more inclusive framework accommodating what DOTS covers, but also making room for emotional-and-social influences and learning processes. The perspectives of CPI can, then, be set out in three dimensions. They show how any part of coverage can be learned through each of the learning processes, and how all is influenced by any of the emotional-and-social influences (Bill Law, 2005) what is CPI? making useful sense of what we know about learning for career-management C: • coverage -facts and factors for students to know; P: • processes - learningskills for students to grasp; I: • influences - emotional-and social-pressures for students to deal with. to know coverage influences to deal with to grasp processes back next print add references more back

14. experience thinking practice probing • identity -raising ‘who-I-am’ issues; • opportunity - raising ‘where-I-might-go’ issues; • role -raising ‘what-I-will-take-on’ issues. role opportunity identity back next print add references more back coverage making useful sense of what people need to know in order to manage their career coverage to know

15. experience thinking practice probing coverage making useful sense of what people need to know in order to manage their career • identity -raising ‘who-I-am’ issues; • opportunity - raising ‘where-I-might-go’ issues; • role -raising ‘what-I-will-take-on’ issues. role opportunity coverage to know identity back next print add references more back experience - my daughter and my career Vague about what might be possible next steps after completing history degree. Has some fuzzy ideas about secondary teaching (she enjoyed school) but far from clear about why she would want to do that - rather than something else she doesn’t yet know about. Has spent a bit of time poking about in the careers centre. The smiley faces and upbeat language in the literature leaves her cold. Finds databases and search criteria mean little to her. Lone parent. Daughter spends a lot of the day in university crèche facility. Much on her mind. Worries that she is a ‘bad mother!’. Will not consider any future career move that does not take account of her daughter’s needs – now and for the next two decades! Wonders whether she can work at home - like Joanne Rowling. ‘But - really! - what are the chances?’ Has agreed to looked at more information about other possibilities - and to try out a couple of self-diagnoses. But her probable 2/1 won’t get her a university teaching job – not in history. And nothing else speaks to her concerns. Declines offers of more help. Hanging in for her finals, and will see what is possible, for her and her child, then.

16. experience thinking practice probing coverage making useful sense of what people need to know in order to manage their career • identity -raising ‘who-I-am’ issues; • opportunity - raising ‘where-I-might-go’ issues; • role -raising ‘what-I-will-take-on’ issues. role opportunity coverage to know identity back next print add references more back thinking - role and career management In conventional thinking a person is linked to an opportunity through a bridging concept - usually decision making. As the idea of transition becomes important the concept becomes both making a decision and dealing with its consequences. A single phrase for this is ‘career management’ - the navigation of self into work. But career management is demanding in other ways. A person must also reconcile what she or he does about work with what is done as partner, parent, friend, neighbour, volunteer – and, of course as consumer. The only word that locates this reality is ‘role’. People manage working life in roles: dilemmas are resolved and problems are solved as a person, in a position, with tasks to take on and people to take into account. That is a role. And so, where the career move has consequences for a child it is managed as job-applicant and mother. When an offer comes from a firm with a poor record on the environment, then as recruitment candidate and civil activist. Moving-on in one role can be in conflict with others. There is always some holding-on and letting-go. It is what we mean by ‘work-life balance’. The balance is between work and other roles - social, partner, family, friendship, consumer, neighbourhood, civil and religious. And work roles are not always dominant - where moving-on would not work out well for other roles, then recruitment people - offering work roles - may not get a look in. Career management in role includes this wider range of real and relevant considerations. Just as important as knowing about opportunity and identity is knowing what it means to take on a role. And there is a lot to know.

17. experience thinking practice probing • feelings - that well-up and settle into an on-going way of looking at things; • attachments -what other people are like, and say, and do, and that are taken seriously; • allegiances -respect given to a group - its beliefs, its values, its expectations and its protection. feelings attachments allegiances back next print add references more back influences making useful sense of the emotional-and-social dynamics which drive career management influences to deal with

18. experience thinking practice probing influences making useful sense of the emotional-and-social dynamics which drive career management • feelings - that well-up and settle into an on-going way of looking at things; • attachments -what other people are like, and say, and do, and that are taken seriously; • allegiances -respect given to a group - its beliefs, its values, its expectations and its protection. feelings influences to deal with attachments allegiances back next print add references more back experience - rockin’ the PhD boat When he shortly completes his economics-and-management degree, his people want him back in the family business. Good feedback from tutors – talk of PhD. Member of band doing well on local and national circuits. Loves it - and senses a once-in-lifetime chance! The other musicians want all the band’s members to put a hold on conventional career planning - while they try for celebrity success. Avoids career-counselling services. Being around that kind of talk calls up too much conflict. Prefers social networking sites - where he can show off the band, get gigs and compare experiences with other musicians. Whatever he decides to do about career will be seriously challenged - either by tutors, by family, by fellow-musicians or by social networking friends (who keep asking him what he’s going to do).

19. experience thinking practice probing back next print • practice - social networking in careers • The project examines how on-line social networking influences students, and how professional helpers can constructively engage with its influence. The aims are to explore narratives of how students use these networks to develop their careers and how employers take part in these conversations. Careers Group staff have indicated their interest in contributing to the project. • The procedure is: • 1. identify questions that practitioners and researchers pose (for example ‘what career-development strategies do students use on social network sites?’, ‘how does what they do with us differ from what they do on-line?, and ‘who are students networking with?’); • 2. commission a literature review and synthesis of all already published material on such questions; • 3. first workshop-discussion group, to examine how the ideas in the synthesis could be put into practice; • 4. practitioners return to practice for 3-6 months, to try out ideas; • 5. interview each practitioner, and using responses to develop a second synthesis; • 6. practitioners validate contents of this synthesis in respect of 'own' practice; • 7. produce final paper; • 8. second workshop-discussion group, to examine paper and identify the outcomes that this whole process has generated. • the sought-for outcomes are: • > recommendations for careers guidance practitioners on how to engage with students in this context; • > knowledge that can be used to develop materials for students using social networking; • > an agenda for further research. influences making useful sense of the emotional-and-social dynamics which drive career management • feelings - that well-up and settle into an on-going way of looking at things; • attachments -what other people are like, and say, and do, and that are taken seriously; • allegiances -respect given to a group - its beliefs, its values, its expectations and its protection. feelings influences to deal with attachments allegiances add references more back

20. experience thinking practice probing • sifting - sorting out the information and impressions, and using comparisons to get manageable order; • focusing - checking out what most needs to be understood in the present situation; • understanding - working out how things got to be this way, and what can be done about them. sifting understanding focusing back next print add references more back processes making useful sense of how people take experience on board, making it a basis for action processes to grasp

21. experience thinking practice probing processes making useful sense of how people take experience on board, making it a basis for action • sifting - sorting out the information and impressions, and using comparisons to get manageable order; • focusing - checking out what most needs to be understood in the present situation; • understanding - working out how things got to be this way, and what can be done about them. sifting understanding processes to grasp focusing back next print add references more back thinking 1 - the learning verbs Learning processes become more important where change accelerates and where emotional-and-social pressures intensify. There is more to catch-up with and to manage into a sustainable basis for action. Processes are expressed as learning verbs – students ‘find’, ‘sift’, ‘focus’ and, ‘understand’. While coverage is what you know and influences are what you deal with, process is how you take all of this on board - and get it to where you know what to do about it. Process becomes more important as things change. Whatever information or assessment we offer today can be out-of-date before it is used as a basis for action. People therefore need to know how to add to what they know, adapt it, and replace what is no longer so. This learning-to-learn. Learning-to-learn for change is a strong argument, but there is a stronger one: a person who has learned how to probe, scrutinise and interrogate in these ways is taking control of her or his own agenda. To be able sift, focus and understand for oneself is to know when both information and pressure is credible – and is not. It forms a basis for action which is not only fulfilling but also sustainable. Talk of what is so, and what is felt, and what is pushing you now, can serve a person for a day, or maybe a year. But taking command of how you know that puts you in charge of the learning verbs - and does it life-long. more/…

22. experience thinking practice probing processes making useful sense of how people take experience on board, making it a basis for action • sifting - sorting out the information and impressions, and using comparisons to get manageable order; • focusing - checking out what most needs to be understood in the present situation; • understanding - working out how things got to be this way, and what can be done about them. sifting understanding processes to grasp focusing back next print add references more back thinking 2 - processing outcomes of learning The most critical test of the value of careers work is not how much people learn while they are with us. It is whether and how they go on to use their learning in their lives. This is transfer of learning – learned in one setting, used in another. Transfer of learning is an absolute requirement of careers work. The indicators of learning transfer are that students recognise the usefulness of their learning while they are learning. In order to do this they need clear markers linking learning to life’s situations. Those markers are clearest when they conjure images of the role that students will be in when they use this learning. It means imagining a scenario where this learning will be useful. ___________________________________________________ my role? e.g.: job applicant / friend / parent; where? e.g.: interview / club / home; who with? e.g.: official / mates / daughter; what task? e.g.: looking good / letting go / holding on. ___________________________________________________ Suppose the learning outcome is: reaching a cause-and-effect understanding of how my action relates to environmental concerns. The student needs an opportunity to foresee a scenario. It might be (role?) as a voluntary activist, (where?) at a public meeting, (who?) working with an audience, (what?) dealing with issues for reconciling her work’s carbon-footprint with her environmental commitments. That student can then show evidence of making a transfer of learning – more than acquiring a learning-outcome, developing an outcome-of-learning.

23. experience thinking practice probing processes making useful sense of how people take experience on board, making it a basis for action • sifting - sorting out the information and impressions, and using comparisons to get manageable order; • focusing - checking out what most needs to be understood in the present situation; • understanding - working out how things got to be this way, and what can be done about them. sifting understanding processes to grasp focusing back next print add references more back probing - process learning outcomes Sifting, focusing and understanding includes knowing how to: > gather useful information and impressions from the range of sources; > compare factors, for example, on the basis of location, requirements and rewards; > find patterns and put them into useful frameworks – analytical, mapping and narrative ways of setting things out; > express other people’s points-of-view on this ; > recognise when they have enough to go on - for more consideration; > focus on key features of what they are finding out, and identify where they now need to probe; > interrogate key features – working out whether and how they might take things further; > explain how key features got to be the way they are; > work out ‘what would happen if…?’ - what they might do and what they could expect to come out of it; > take account of those consequences for their employers but also for people who also rely on them; > grasp how their action relates to equal opportunity, work-life balance, service-to-others, the developing-world and environmental concerns; > give a credible account of what they mean to do and why – in both selection-procedure and conversational terms. Enabling learning process means that students are not just consumers of knowledge, but partners with us - in an on-going pursuit of understanding of what is going on and what they can do about it.

24. experience thinking practice probing • sifting - mind-mapping who and what comes into view when career-action is needed; • focusing - getting a clear point-of-view on what needs working out; • understanding - working out what to do and how to do it - in sustainable order. understanding focusing sifting back next print add references more back influences and processes making useful sense of how emotional-and-social Influences need processing feelings attachments influences to deal with processes to grasp allegiances sifting

25. experience thinking practice probing • sifting - mind-mapping who and what comes into view when career-action is needed; • focusing - getting a clear point-of-view on what needs working out; • understanding - working out what to do and how to do it - in sustainable order. understanding focusing sifting back next print add references more back self presentation Students need to know how to look good in dealing with recruiters and selectors. It means making calls, writing letters, developing cvs and dealing with interviews. These call on career-management processes: > sifting - who receiving this and what are their preoccupations; > focussing - what, then, does maximum justice to this application; > understanding - likely reactions and ways of dealing with them. And they are sophisticated communication skills. But they are useful in more than one way. Here, in recruitment, a student uses them in relation to an interest in the opportunity (a feeling), a wanting to belong to it (an attachment), and a sense of the value of its activities (an allegiance). But the skills can be applied to other influences. Indeed, recruitment may not be the most pressing use. Informal memberships are increasingly important - a partner, a child or a social group. Or a village - without whose support university would never have been an option. > sifting - who needs to know and why; > focussing - what most needs to be said and why it is important to me; > understanding - what they will say and how to stay in touch. It is possible that if a students cannot manage these more person influences well, then no application will be made. It is also possible that learning how to say it up-close-and-personal is as good a preparation as any, for saying it to recruiters. influences and processes making useful sense of how emotional-and-social Influences need processing feelings attachments influences to deal with processes to grasp allegiances

26. PROPdoes this help? can this material help you with: getting to grips with contemporary career management? working on that understanding with students, colleagues and managers? engaging a widening range of careers-work help for students’ learning needs? tracking how research can advance this thinking? probing the issues and values of this work? using the framework tool to support all of this? yes/no yes/no yes/no yes/no yes/no yes/no if ‘no’ contact Bill Law at bill@hihohiho.com with comments and suggestions HECSU’s PROP programme at www.hecsu.ac.uk more about CPI at www.hihohiho.com/moving%20on/cafbrief.pdf this PowerPoint at www.hihohiho.com/moving%20on/propcpi.ppt supporting pdf at www.hihohiho.com/moving%20on/propcpi.pdf