Understanding academic staff beliefs about graduate attributes

As teachers, academic staff play a significant role in supporting their students to develop graduate attributes needed for successful employment and lifelong learning. The beliefs and attitudes of academic staff around graduate attributes influence whether and how they engage with this important task.

Attempts to integrate graduate attributes into the curriculum have not paid enough attention to, among other change management factors, the beliefs and attitudes that academic staff have about the importance of graduate attributes, the task of integrating and assessing them, and their roles and responsibilities in relation to this work (de la Harpe&Radloff, 2003; 2006).

A national discipline-based project aimed at enhancing universities' ability to embed graduate attributes across the disciplines is being undertaken during 2008 and 2009.

The project involves 16 universities and is led by a team from RMIT University, Murdoch University and University of New South Wales. The team also included CQUniversity for the first year of the project during which Professor Alex Radloff (formerly PVC Academic Services, CQU) was lead researcher and Ms Anne Lawson was project manager.

The project is supported by an expert reference group.