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Evaluative judgement is the capability to make decisions about the quality of work of oneself and others. In this paper, we propose that developing students' evaluative judgement should be a goal of higher education, to enable students to improve their work and to meet their future learning needs: a necessary capability of graduates. We explore evaluative judgement within a discourse of pedagogy rather than primarily within an assessment discourse, as a way of encompassing and integrating a range of pedagogical practices. We trace the origins and development of the term 'evaluative judgement' to form a concise definition then recommend refinements to existing higher education practices of self-assessment, peer assessment, feedback, rubrics, and use of exemplars to contribute to the development of evaluative judgement. Considering pedagogical practices in light of evaluative judgement may lead to fruitful methods of engendering the skills learners require both within and beyond higher education settings. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

This study examines the relationship between English proficiency, graduates' attributes, employability skills, job mismatch, and unemployment of fresh graduates in Malaysia. A quantitative questionnaire survey method was used to collect data from 300 respondents who were college or university graduates in Malaysia. The researchers employed the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to examine the collected data. The findings revealed a substantial negative correlation between English proficiency, employability skills, and unemployment after graduation. In addition, the findings showed a positive correlation between graduates’ attributes and unemployment. The study's findings indicate that English proficiency has the most significant impact on unemployment among fresh graduates. Universities or colleges should encourage their students to develop employability skills, including the ability to understand, speak clearly, make decisions, solve problems, and produce creative works. Additionally, they should assess students' English proficiency and prioritize developing their employability skills. Malaysian higher education institutions should assist graduates in developing employability skills to meet industry needs and enhance their marketability in the job market.

Complex and rapidly evolving work contexts augment industry calls for future-capable graduates that can demonstrate enterprise capabilities such as critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and value creation. Gaps between employers’ expectations and evaluations of higher education (HE) graduates’ enterprise capabilities continue to drive university curriculum renewal. There is a particular focus on work-integrated learning (WIL), a spectrum of industry-student engagement activities which provide valuable opportunities for developing and applying skills and knowledge, including enterprise capabilities. Despite small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) offering fertile ground for enterprise learning, challenges limit their engagement in workplace-based WIL (internships/placements) due to resource and supervisory constraints. This study explores how co-working spaces may support SME engagement in WIL to develop enterprise capabilities, better preparing HE students for future work. It piloted two rounds of business student internships in the largest co-working space in Western Australia, surveying and interviewing both students and workplace supervisors to gauge development and understand enablers and challenges during WIL. Findings affirmed the synergistic value of SMEs and co-working spaces for fostering students’ enterprise capabilities, particularly communication and critical thinking skills, innovative behaviour, and building confidence. While some of the challenges which impact on SMEs engagement and outcomes in WIL remained, the co-working environment offered unique exposure to entrepreneurial mindsets and rich opportunities for collaboration, networking, and formal training. This study offers important insights on WIL design that increases participation among SMEs, a targeted objective of Australia’s national WIL strategy, and leverages co-working space environments to produce future-capable graduates.

Engineering graduates are expected to demonstrate competence after their engineering programmes in the form of graduate attributes (GAs) prescribed by the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA). It has, however, been challenging to develop and assess these attributes, especially using conventional assessment or examination methods, just as on the global scale. Nevertheless, studies have demonstrated that undergraduate research enables students to develop independent critical skills, as they do in graduate studies, by identifying a problem that needs to be solved. Undergraduate research has not been widely explored as a tool in developing and accessing GAs in engineering students. This study examined the impact of undergraduate research in engineering student ECSA GAs development and assessment using a case study of civil engineering diploma students. Therefore, using purposeful quantitative sampling methods, first-year and second-year diploma students were interviewed on their experience with newly introduced undergraduate research. Observations of the students' responses indicated that students' understanding, and views of GAs do improve from the first year to the second year due to continuous exposure to research. A conceptual model for assessing and developing GAs among engineering students is proposed in this study. This conceptual framework can assist in the further development of strategies in the implementation of undergraduate research at universities of technology.

Malaysia has positioned itself as an internationalized education hub, attracting growing numbers of international doctoral students from China. Yet PhD degrees from Malaysian higher education providers (HEPs) are often perceived as inferior in China’s labor market, raising questions about how returnees construct their employability. This exploratory qualitative study examined how Chinese returnees with Malaysian-obtained PhDs perceive the attributes and PhD program resources that shape their employment prospects in Chinese higher education. Using snowball sampling, we interviewed 18 returnees through in-depth biographical interviews supplemented by a scroll-back approach drawing on their social media traces. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis informed by graduate capital and multiple-stakeholder perspectives. Findings indicate that human capital (PhD credentials, research skills, publications), social capital ( guanxi and academic networks), psychological capital (resilience and adaptability), and agentic capital (self-awareness and strategic action) are central to employability. Participants also emphasized curriculum and research training, supervisor support, and opportunities to connect with academia as key resources, though supervision quality and academic networking were frequently perceived as insufficient in Malaysian HEPs. The study suggests that HEPs and policymakers should strengthen these resources and adopt integrated capital-based and multiple-stakeholder approaches to more effectively support international PhD students’ employability.

Globally, rapid technological advancement is creating widespread concern about workforces of the future, and universities are expected to produce highly skilled graduates to meet the unremitting demands of knowledge economies. In this context, graduate attributes are a means for developing employability skills and an avenue for institutions to demonstrate to employers and potential graduates that the requisite skills will be developed during a degree. To meet these needs, graduate attributes tend to emphasise a range of generic abilities such as team work, communicating effectively, or critical thinking. While these soft skills are common in suites of graduate attributes, more recently, a next generation of attributes is emerging. The curriculum has now become a site for critical global issues such as sustainability. Also, globalisation is driving universities to foster graduates' intercultural and international skills, reflecting a diversifying and internationalised workforce. In Australian universities, and those in other colonised nations such as Canada and New Zealand, there is a growing emphasis on ensuring that graduates engage with Indigenous content and develop the capacity to work effectively with and for Indigenous peoples to address inequities and promote social justice. Using a case example from an Australian university curriculum project, we describe a degree framework developed to guide the institution wide implementation of Indigenous graduate attributes. Although the case context is quite specific, the guiding principles have widespread relevance for embedding graduate attributes into university curricula. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

A number of commentators have recently called for a re-examination of the purpose and value of undergraduate education, arguing that change is required if universities are to deliver the value in educational outcomes that students and communities now require for a changing and challenging world (for example, Aoun, 2017; Bok, 2020; Davidson, 2017; Fischman & Gardner, 2022). Indeed, some have argued that such change is necessary to stem an emerging crisis in universities’ ‘social license to operate’ (Bok, 2020). In this paper, we review the case for undergraduate curriculum change and present a case study of one Australian university’s engagement with this challenge, describing the reasons for change, the desired outcomes, and some early impacts on students’ study patterns. The change took place at the University of Sydney over the period from 2014 to 2021 with a new undergraduate curriculum introduced for commencing students from 2018. Intended to prepare students for a changing world, the new curriculum sought a balance between graduates’ expertise in a primary field of study and a set of broader capabilities that would support their capacity for future learning and for creative and effective engagement in life and career, including an understanding of broader intellectual landscapes; the skills for collaboration, invention, and influence; and the integration of knowledge with professional and personal ethics and values. The aspiration to develop such capabilities is shared with many universities around the world, and we describe here how the available evidence base was used to guide whole-of-University curriculum redesign in this case. We also identify areas where further research would be of value.

In this qualitative study, we research what constitutes the relationships between conceptions of quality and value associated with higher education as experienced by prospective employers of business graduates. Quality and value in higher education are often linked though the relationship is unclear. Employers are an important and under-researched stakeholder group on the demand side of higher education. Data are generated by interviewing prospective employers of business graduates from a UK university. Interviews are analysed using a phenomenographic method to determine the qualitatively different ways in which actors make sense of the relationships between quality and value. Understanding prospective employers' conceptions of the relationships is important given the competitive pressures on universities and businesses. The research reinforces the experiential and idiosyncratic relationships between quality and value in higher education. Three conceptions of what constitutes quality and value in higher education are discussed: (a) quality is an antecedent of value; (b) quality is simple while value is complex; and (c) quality is internal to HE while value is created in the customer domain. The research outcomes provide important insights for researchers and practitioners through clearer understanding of how quality and value are related for this important stakeholder group. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

PurposeThe paper aims at examining the employability skills relevant in the unprecedented times of turbulence in businesses due to COVID-19 in the Indian context.Design/methodology/approachThe study examined the recent skills model through an extensive literature review. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is conducted to identify the employability skills perceived as important by multiple stakeholders. ANOVA was applied to examine the differences in perceived importance attached to these dimensions by the three stakeholders.FindingsThe ten-factorial solution was extracted based on the results of EFA The findings offer a fresh perspective on digital competencies perceived as most important to ensure successful long-term employability, followed by business fundamentals and behavioral skills.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has been able to map perceptions of employers, faculty and students based in Delhi-NCR regarding essential employability skills. It would be worthwhile to validate the proposed employability skills framework across different geographical sections of India and ascertain if the perceptions vary in the employment sector and employer size.Practical implicationsAlthough the study has put forth practical employability skills, there is a need for convergence between the business stakeholders and Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to develop a broad skill-base for the fresh graduates. The study will prepare them for the volatile business environment.Originality/valueMany previous studies have lacked the employability skill framework in the Indian context from the multiple stakeholders' perspective. The HEIs can rethink their current employability, including the most prominent skills required in succeeding in a technology-enabled business environment transformed by the pandemic.

This literature review considers the role graduate attributes have to play in contemporary higher education (HE). Considering academic literature and reports from government and industry, it argues that there is currently a crisis in HE whereby the financial benefits of having a degree are overwhelmed by the financial burden of obtaining one. This crisis has its roots in the growing trend to perceive the value of HE as the means to the end of employment rather than as an end in itself.Graduate attributes (the skills and competencies students are supposed to acquire over the course of their studies) have the potential to promote HE as an end in itself. However, in their current form they typically do not have strong theoretical foundations and are too heavily subject to the influence of industry. Furthermore, despite explicit claims that graduates display these characteristics, institutions do not normally measure the attainment of graduate attributes. For graduate attributes to become more useful and relevant, these issues need to be resolved.