Velocity, as any good physicist will tell you, is the speed of an object in relation to its directional force. A car can move forwards and backwards, at various speeds, and even up and down in the wrong hands. This is an important idea to consider because as an object moves through space, it may move at a consistent speed but with a different velocity.

The progress that a learner makes during a course may not be consistent. They may experience setbacks and stumbling blocks, things that slow them down and things that speed them up. Now let’s consider the measurement programmes of most courses. The way of measuring outcomes for learners, is usually in two set points in time, the starting point, and the outcome. For some short courses, this may be a very good measure of the progress that a learner makes. However, it could be argued that this measurement misses data and therefore lacks validity.

If we are to gain a true picture of the progress made by learners on courses in the further education sector, we need to increase the measurement of outcomes at different points during the course. This will not only help to measure the effect of interventions on learning but provide practitioners with a clear guide of where to target their work. This data is often captured by educators, in the form of formative assessment tasks, that give an indication of the progress that learners have made and where the learner needs to progress to next. However, this formative assessment may well focus on their progression to a set of hard learning outcomes that relate to skills or knowledge. Formative assessment is not often concerned with the capturing of soft skills data.

In not recording this information about ‘soft skills’, like resilience, wellbeing, mutual understanding, self-confidence, we often ignore an entire facet of development for learners. If we knew the progress that learners were making toward these soft skills, as educators we can use this information to identify interventions that may develop these skills in learners and measure the effectiveness of these.

These skills can be measured in many ways, there is a move to develop soft outcomes in further education. One method of conceptualising these outcomes is the capitals framework. Carrington suggests that the development of leaners’ social, human, cultural and symbolic capital. Social capital concerns the networks and relationships that learners develop because of being involved in a programme of education. Cultural capital is the ability to operate in and understand new social spaces. Human capital concerns the economic value that learning develops. Symbolic capital is the perception of self and how learners are perceived by others (Carrington, 2020). The difficulty here is that these ideas of capitals are based on a singular conception of what is considered good and is therefore value laden. There is a concern that values become imposed on to learners in a way that suppresses their own internally and externally held values. Therefore, in developing outcomes, there is a need to consider what soft skills are required by a learner to progress in education and employment whilst considering their own values and beliefs.

In developing a set of ‘soft’ outcomes for learners to work toward, practitioners can measure progress, set targets, and adjust teaching interventions to assist learners in meeting these outcomes. This could be measured through a leaner self-assessment to identify areas of a leaner’s progress. A template version of this is available in the resources section of HK Learning.

References

Carrington, P., 2020. A NEET ending: How Adult and Community Learning supports young people who are Not in Employment, Education or Training, Northampton: University of Northampton.