Supporting the Needs of the Independent Learner Within Higher Education

Introduction To Transferable Skills

It is now widely recognised by employers, professional bodies and research funding agencies that specialist expertise alone is not sufficient preparation either for research or a subsequent career and that Higher Education (HE) institutions must still relate to the UK Quality Code “Safeguarding academics; assuring the academic quality of learning opportunities; promoting continuous and systematic improvement (enhancement); and finally ensuring that information about programmes is fit for purpose, accessible and trustworthy” (QAA, 2015, p1). It is still important that HE Researchers like Dennis, Smith, and Wadsworth (2012)Saiti and Prokopiadou (2008), Campbell et al., (2008), Hryciw, Tangalakis, and Best, (2017), Bolton, and Rosselli, (2017), Mawson, and Haworth, (2018) indicates that HE students require a balance between the skills needed within the labour market, adaptability, and transferable skills, ranging from literacy to highlighting the benefits working within a collaborative setting. Alpay and Walsh (2008) mentions that attitudes toward skills set of the students have shifted towards a positive outlook from not just postgraduates but also from employers and academia. Nägele, & Stalder (2017), has similar views to Alpay and Walsh (2008) and indicates that transferable skills play a pivotal role within practice, recruitment, selection process, and organisational entry when entering industry.

In this research, the author builds upon work carried out previous as indicated as indicated by (Costello, 2015), which was to present an approach tailored towards the requirements of Higher Educational Institutes by mapping educational pathways through the use of an Online-Recommender Systems (Drachsler et al., 2008; Wang and Wu 2011; Bridge and Dunleavy 2014) to provide pre-guidance transferable training skills for Higher Educational students within a variety of different disciplines. To support these different disciplines within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) there are according to Chadha (2015) amount of pressure to develop learner’s abilities to support skills that can tailor for everyone instead of “one size fits all” (Chadha, 2015, p3).

It is vital that that HEIs incorporate diversity to widen learning activities, to increase overall intake to Universities (Sherbin, and Rashid 2017; Chadha, 2015). This approach will address how academics will: lectur, build resources, provide tailored support, and develop new skills to give the learners the confidence they need before they go into industry through embedding “knowledge, understanding, critical analysis and creativity” (Chadha, 2015, p3).