Academics' Understandings of Generic Graduate Attributes: a Conceptual Basis for Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning is a commonly espoused quality of university graduates (Candy et al 1994). However even a cursory consideration of the literature reveals a bewildering array of definitions and assumed meanings attached to the term. Such confusion is of course not limited to this particular graduate quality. There have been repeated calls (see for example Clanchy & Ballard 1995, Holmes 2000) for basic definitional work and a clarification of the theoretical and conceptual basis for such graduate attributes, skills or capabilities, (just to mention a few of the terms used to describe these sorts of learning outcomes). However, while policy statements listing graduate qualities have proliferated and the vocabulary used has come to have the appearance of a shared common usage, the extent to which the underlying meaning of terms like lifelong learning is shared, remains questionable.