Overview

Students will have different expectations of and motivations for going through Higher Education, and many factors will have an impact on their success and progression into work or further study - academic achievement, co-curricular achievements and the acquisition of transferable skills amongst them.

PDP is intended to improve the capacity of students to communicate their learning to others who are interested, such as academic staff and employers, to self-reflect, to plan and monitor the achievement of personal objectives (QAA: Evaluation of the Academic Infrastructure | Advance HE)

A Personal Development Plan (PDP) will help support:

• Enhanced Learning: A PDP helps students become more effective learners. By identifying strengths and weaknesses, students can tailor their learning strategies and improve their overall performance.
  
  
• Goal Clarity: Having a PDP means working towards the development of their future. It provides a better sense of control and helps in making informed decisions along the way.
  
  
• Structured Approach: A PDP ensures that students have a roadmap for achieving short-term and long-term goals.
  
  
• Improved Decision-Making: When obstacles arise, having a PDP allows students to anticipate challenges and plan ahead.
  
  
• Career and Personal Growth: A well-structured PDP helps students to recognise areas for improvement, set objectives, and take personalised actions to achieve them.

Models

There are various models that support the use of PDP. All help students in their personal development by:

• relating their learning to a wider professional context;
• improving their general skills for study and career management
• articulating their personal goals, enhancing opportunities and evaluating progress towards their achievement.

These models can be summarised as:

• Discrete: students are encouraged to engage with ‘PDP activities’ but these are additional to the curriculum. Students maintain their own PDP, often in the form of a portfolio, deciding what to include and undertaking their own analysis and reflection.
  
  
• Linked: In this model, PDP runs alongside the curriculum, for example, through activities in certain modules / units). Students are given activities as part of the course which emphasise PDP and consciously link these to their personal progress.
  
  
• Embedded modular: PDP is embedded in certain units designed to provide the main support for PDP, which may also link with material studied elsewhere and the student’s progress file or portfolio. These units may have a focus on skills and/or a subject as well as emphasising PDP processes. This is the model most often used in HEIs.
  
  
• Integrated: PDP is embedded across the whole curriculum and most units involve activities which incorporate PDP processes through a reflective approach to learning. Curricula seeking to address employability issues particularly lend themselves to this type of approach.
  
  
• Extended: PDP processes are embedded in the curriculum but also integrate activities which occur outside the curriculum. This type of model is most often found in professional programmes where students are working in an area related to the topic they are studying, where PDP provides the link between the academic curriculum and these wider experiences.

Embedding PDP into the curriculum

The University has long been concerned with the embedding of PDP into the curriculum, as outlined as far back as the 2005 case study ‘To embed or not to embed? The embedding of PDP in the curriculum’ [PDF]

The main reasons for integrating PDP into the curriculum are:

1. It supports learning: PDP prepares students for academic study by emphasising learning processes and skills. By introducing PDP activities that allow students to reflect on their learning and practise practical skills (for example in the mock interview process), they get an opportunity to make the most of their learning potential.
   
   
2. All students can benefit from PDP: embedding it into the curriculum means that all students get the same opportunity to become more effective, independent and confident self-directed learners.
   
   
3. More effective and sustainable use of resources: if PDP processes are integrated within the curriculum, resources produced can be reused, saving staff time and avoiding duplication of effort and materials.
   
   
4. Preparation for life beyond university: PDP processes are widely used in ‘professional’ life as part of continuing professional development and all students need to be prepared for this as well as for life beyond university.
   
   
5. The relationship between PDP and the curriculum. Academic staff embedding PDP may focus on one of the three purposes for PDP: student learning, careers and employability, or students’ personal development. For example, vocational courses are more likely to emphasise educational and career dimensions while more traditional academic courses may emphasise personal and educational aspects.

Reflecting on your practice

The following questions support reflection on the way PDP is used in your curriculum:

• Do your students consider what they’ve done before the activity that might have a bearing this time round? For example, if they are doing a group work activity, does the activity start by looking at what group work activities they did the previous year or in their pre-university studies – and what they learned from these?
  
  
• Do students assess their own abilities in relation to the task and consider how they might improve? This can be done at the beginning, middle or end of the activity.
  
  
• Are students actively encouraged to reflect (in a structured way) on what they’ve learned during and/or after the activity?
  
  
• Are students helped to make connections between what they learned in the activity and future planned activities or the world beyond their current course? This might be in their personal life, in future study or in employment.
  
  
• Are students provided with clear guidance as to what PDP is and how it is supported?
  
  
• Are students supported in seeing the activity in context? Are they provided with guidance on what is different about this activity from similar activities they’ve done in the past, (such as the nature or the level of the intended outcomes)? Are they helped to see how it relates to their wider academic study, to the attainment of learning outcomes and to the world beyond the university?
  
  
• Do students know of sources of help (staff, written material, e-learning guides) with the key elements of PDP (task-specific requirements, self-awareness assessments, reflection)?
  
  
• Are they guided as to how to keep records of their reflections and activities (using notes, blogs, portfolios, journals)? The recording is not an essential requirement, but it can help with contemporaneous and subsequent reflection and is a means of evidencing development.