ABSTRACT
Every student who engages with a university education has learning as a key ambition. The continuing link between graduate attributes and employability can therefore be seen to have been the result of the skills agenda and continuing governmental initiatives and drivers. The concept of graduate attributes is as much driven by institutional ownership and the need for differentiation in a crowded higher education marketplace as by employability demands. This has implications not only for the role of graduate attributes at undergraduate level but also for the continuing learner journey in postgraduate study or continuing professional development (CPD) courses. The approach taken by some universities to the development of their institutional graduate attributes is to create a framework that spans both undergraduate and postgraduate experiences. Work undertaken for the Quality Assurance Agency Scotland (QAAS) by Bamber and colleagues as part of the Learning from International Practice (LFIP) project on 'Mastersness' identified a number of facets of being a Master's level student.
