Personal Development Planning

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Personal Development Planning
Rob Ward
The one-stop shop for the HE Progress File
http//www.recordingachievement.org
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Origins of the HE Progress File

• Dearing HE Inquiry Recommendation 20
• We recommend that Institutions of Higher
  Education, over the
• medium term, develop a Progress File. The File
  should consist of two elements
• A Transcript recording student achievement which
  should follow a common format devised by
  institutions collectively through their
  representative bodies
• A means by which students can monitor, build and
  reflect upon their personal development (Personal
  Development Planning/Recording).
•  
• National Committee of Inquiry into Higher
  Education, 1997

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Personal Development Planning

• Defined a structured and supported process
  undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their
  own learning, performance and/or achievement and
  to plan for their personal, educational and
  career development.
• Policy Intentions to help students
• become more effective, independent and confident
  self-directed learners
• understand how they are learning and relate their
  learning to a wider context
• improve their general skills for study and career
  management
• articulate their personal goals and evaluate
  progress towards their achievement
• and encourage a positive attitude to learning
  throughout life.
•  
• 5 year lead-in-time (2005/06 start date) for the
  implementation of policy across the whole system
  and for all HE awards.
• More recently
• ..we will review . the progress being made
  on the use of transcripts and personal
  development portfolios. We want them to
  be used to enable learners to understand
  and reflect on their achievements and to present
  those achievements to employers, institutions and
  other stakeholders. HE Strategy Paper.

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Progress to date-different ways of seeing

• Another
• Load of educational jargon.
• Job to do.
• Form filling, paper-pushing activity.
• Demand from the QAA.
• Distraction from why I am here.
• Activity the students dont want.
• But (there is another way of seeing)

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Reaction to PDPAn Alternative Academic
Perspective

• Something academics are doing already, so..
• not a new idea, but a mainstream academic
  process.
• Offers coherence to a range of contexts.
• Technology can serve and support the process,
  but...
• A central/local policy balance, so customisable
  frameworks' for practice.
• Needs student responsibility and staff
  involvement/support.

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PDP and Effective Learning

• PDP enhances learning i.e. there are positive
  outcomes when the process of learning involves
  reflection and action planning.
• Gough, D.A., Kiwan, D., Sutcliffe, S., Simpson
  D. and Houghton N (2003) A systematic map and
  synthesis review of the effectiveness of personal
  development planning for improving student
  learning.
• Report on-line at
• http//eppi.ioe.ac.uk/EPPIWeb/home.aspx?page/reel
  /review_groups/EPPI/LTSN/LTSN_intro.htm

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PDP and Employability

• Significance of review, reflection and planning
  to graduate employability - employers
  increasingly require individuals to know their
  own capabilities, values and vision, which these
  processes can help them to develop.
• Research for the QAA confirmed the relevance of
  PDP to
• Initial applications, particularly when
  responding to questions which require reflective
  understanding
• Preparation for assessment centres
• Development within organisations (Appraisal and
  CPD).

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PDP and Student Achievement (MRASG)

• Key areas
• Review current methodologies for representing
  (describing, measuring and recording) student
  achievement.
• Identify progress on use of transcripts and
  personal development portfolios.
• Consider more sophisticated ways of measuring
  value added.
• Evaluate recent research on the honours
  classification system consider possible
  alternative methods for presenting the overall
  achievements of students.
• Build upon the best current practice on credit
  systems, and to scale this up so that there is
  widespread and consistent use of credit across
  higher education.
• Report available at
• http//bookshop.universitiesuk.ac.uk/downloads/mea
  suringachievement.pdf

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PDP and eportfolio

• The e-dimension
• Fit for purpose? systems centred on the learner
  and which reflect processes they seek to support.
• Institutional Embedding, commonality vs.
  diversity - IT systems emphasise commonality,
  paper-based practice tends to work best with
  local context, ownership.
• Differentiation, which elements are most
  effectively managed electronically, which by
  human intervention.
• Contextualised Technology who has access to
  which record systems?
• Interoperability how to ensure records are
  transferable between systems.
• The personal dimension
• Staff motivation and capabilities, student
  motivation and capabilities, being able to
  respond to the whats in it for me question.

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PDP and Postgraduate Researchers Minimum
threshold standards

• Selection/admission/enrolment/inductionstudent
  and institution to sign up to an agreement on the
  desired outcomes of the RDP.
• Supervisory arrangements regular structured
  interations between the student and the
  supervisor/s to report discuss and agree academic
  and personal progress..
• Development of research and other skills student
  and supervisor/s to identify and agree a
  training needs analysisas part of the induction
  process. Student training needs to be reviewed
  regularlystudent to maintain a jointly agreed
  record of personal progress in the development of
  research and other skills.

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QAA Code of Practice for Research Students

• Institutions will put in place and bring to the
  attention of students and relevant staff clearly
  defined mechanisms for formal reviews of student
  progress, including explicit review stages.
• Institutions will provide guidance to students,
  supervisors and others involved in progress
  monitoring and review processes about the
  importance of keeping appropriate records of the
  outcomes of meetings and related activities.
• Institutional guidance may be facilitated by
  the introduction of electronic logs, such as can
  be made available through institutional portals,
  perhaps as part of personal development planning
  (PDP).
• Each student's development needs will be
  identified and agreed jointly by the student and
  appropriate academic staff, initially during the
  student's induction period they will be
  regularly reviewed during the research programme
  and amended as appropriate.
• Institutions will provide opportunities for
  research students to maintain a record of
  personal progress, which includes reference to
  the development of research and other skills.

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Personal Development Planning for Postgraduates

• ..postgraduates welcome the idea of PDP. Many
  schemes however seem to swamp the research
  student leading to half-heartedness and poor
  implementation. One key problem is that
  supervisors often do not fully recognise the
  importance of PDP and without their support,
  students often lose interest and the schemes
  become more of a chore than a benefit. Although
  PDP should be student owned and implemented,
  strong support and encouragement from supervisors
  is imperative.
• PDP can bring the structure often seen in taught
  p/g programmes into research degrees. This
  should avert the tunnel blindness often developed
  by the narrow focus of a thesis and result in a
  broader context of learning which is essential
  for future career prospects.
• National Postgraduate Committee

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Where from Here?

• Audit existing practice/build upon existing
  expertise.
• Be clear what is it we want to achieve through
  PDP, and what to avoid.
• Be clear on costs and workloads are we talking
  about
• Embedding PDP in the curriculum?
• Replacing existing activities with new ones based
  around PDP?
• New build' - adding PDP on top of existing
  provision?