Abstract
Within the expansion of postgraduate educational qualifications for health professionals, graduate attributes have become important markers of outcomes and value. However, it is not clear how or when graduate attributes develop, or how they are applied in professional practice after graduation. We interviewed 17 graduates from two online Master’s programmes to explore their perceptions of how postgraduate study had influenced their practice and professional identity. Our thematic analysis produced three main themes (academic voice, infectious curiosity, and expanding worldview) which reflected changes in the participants’ confidence, attitude, perspective, and agency across professional and academic settings. We then conducted a secondary phase of analysis using Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘field’, ‘capital’, and ‘habitus’. While graduate attributes have been conceptualised as the context-independent acquisition of traits that can be employed by individuals, Bourdieu’s framework highlights their relational qualities: they are caught up in the cultural history and context of the student/professional, the reputation of the awarding institution, and the graduate’s location within a network of professional peers.
Highlights
Taught postgraduate (PGT) degrees are increasingly seen by clinicians as a way of gaining additional skills key to future career development
We have considered the experiences and perceptions of graduates of two online Master’s programmes in relation to changes in agency and practice across academic and professional healthcare settings
Despite their varied reasons for undertaking postgraduate study, our participants felt that the benefits obtained were greater, and of a different kind, from those they had anticipated when starting their programmes
Summary
Taught postgraduate (PGT) degrees are increasingly seen by clinicians as a way of gaining additional skills key to future career development. This is reflected in a proportionately greater increase in PGT enrolments related to healthcare and education (Universities UK 2018). Dispositions produced through engagement in programmes of study (Hager, 2006)—are referred to in the strategic plans of most universities They are a contentious topic in the literature, with debate focusing on whether these attributes really can be transferred from one setting to another (e.g. from University to workplace), and whether the development of attributes should be considered a product that can be measured, or a developmental process (Holmes 2013)
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