Enhancing Employability Skills: A Reflective Analysis Using Gibbs

This report provides a reflective analysis of academic and employability skills using the Gibbs model. It details experiences working on a group assignment, including challenges faced and lessons learned. The report covers various stages of the Gibbs model, such as description, feeling, evaluation, a...Read More

Academic and
employability skills

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
Gibbs Model for skills ................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Employability skills are referred as the transferable skills that are required for an
individual to become employable. As employability depends upon various skills, knowledge,
understanding as well as attitude that are required by the employer for specific job position.
There are various employability skills like communication and interpersonal skills, problem-
solving skills, teamwork, organisation and negotiation skills and ability to learn and adopt. In
this report various employability skills are covered through explaining Gibbs reflective model.
These employability skills helps an individual to attain the objective of employability (Bell, Cake
and Mansfield, 2018). There are are various skills are selected and a reflective model is being
applied that includes various difficulties that are faced by me and how I overcome these
challenges to improve my capabilities and skills.
TASK
Gibbs Model for skills
The Gibbs reflective model is developed by the Graham Gibbs in the year of 1988 that
provides as effective structure to express learning as well as experiences form specific event. The
framework facilitates an individual to examining experiences as well as provide an effective
medium to express their feelings and experiences in well-appropriate structural manner. There
are six stages are included in Gibbs model that are description, feeling, evaluation, analysis,
conclusion as well as action plan. In each and every stage various skills are developed that
facilitates to enhance overall personality of an individual. Stages of Gibbs model are mentioned
below:
Description: A assignment work in given to me form University so we decided to
complete the work in group for the purpose to competing the work on time before submission
date. There are five members are in the group including me. I am very exited to work in a team
and start the assignment of e-learning and its impacts. First of all, all group members share our
ideas, thought and views among all team that creates mutual understanding among us
(Caminade, Flores and Sagarino, 2016). Through taking initiated I have divided the whole
assignment work in various sections and allot all parts of work to each members according to
their skills and capabilities so, they can perform properly and more efficient manner. We have
organise work according to defined timeline for completing assignment work on time. We all

decided to complete own parts and collaborate whole at the last. The whole project enhance my
ability to work in a team and listen point of views of others that enables me to perform in proper
manner as a team member. There are proper time is provided to each member to complete their
own section of work. As we have not decided to writing style of doing assignment as well as do
not decide time to rewrite the assignment that go wrong (Young and Keup, 2018). There are
various challenges are faced by us that limits our working and its efficiency. To resolve the
problem we have conducted various meeting in which all tea members provide their suggestions
regarding problems and we mutually take decisions that enhances team sprite.
Feeling: In the starting of assignment or group work I was feeling exited and nervous.
Before starting the work, there are lot of work to do. I has happy and exited as I divided whole
assignment work among all group members smartly according to members interest area and
capabilities that facilitates them to perform work in more efficient manner and achieve desirable
outcome. When we actually started the assignment work there are various challenges and
difficulties are faces by all team members so, I got frustrated. As per miscommunication, all
members prepare their piece of work in different writing style that de-motivates us because it
take too much time to rewrite the assignment. After all this situation, l motivated all group
members to rewrite their part again with full efficiency and effectiveness (Clokie and Fourie,
2016). All members support the decision and did hard work to complete the assignment work on
time in efficiency. Because of handwork and dedication, we are able complete the assignment
work on time before the date of submission that enhances the feeling of satisfaction. The whole
thing enhances the skill of planning and organisation. As I have divide whole work and assign
the to suitable team members who can perform it more better and organise work as well all
necessary resources to complete the task properly.
Evaluation: As I have worked in group to prepare a assignment on e-learning and its
impact. There are various situations are raised that creates positive as well as negative impacts on
overall working procedure and output. During the assignment work various things were in the
favour of work such as all group members perform their assign take with full efficiency and
produce quality work before deadline date. Tow group members are cancel their plans that
motivates whole group members to work hard in the evening. It impacts positive impact on work
that all group members follow all instructions and work ethics that are decided to complete the
assignment. There are various other factors and aspects that went wrong and affect work

negatively as all group members prepare their piece of work in different writing styles and the
mistake is realised at the tie of collaborating work together in one assignment (Hill, Overton and
Thompson, 2020). The mistake was happened because of miscommunication and waste our to
time because we had to rewrite the whole assignment in proper manner. After the mistake, we
conduct a meeting ad clear all things and develops effective communication among team. It
enhances my communication skills that facilitates me to lead team, understand their problems
and resolve them in effective manner that help to achieve defined goals and objectives on time.
As I have prepared a action plan to perform work in well-defined manner in determined time
limits that enhanced my writing skills as well. The whole assignment work provides both good
and bad experiences that affect the work. I have prepared various alternative solutions, strategies
and methods that help to overcome the difficulties and perform properly.
Analysis: There are various reasons that our initial division of assignment work went
well because all members are satisfies with their part because they had knowledge about it and
the work is divided according to their self-identified capabilities and strengths. I was also happy
with my part because my work matches my strengths. Proper allocation of work saves time to
combine the work at last stage for submission. At the end we realise that the costing and time
was high as compared to what we decided because of rewriting the assignment (Lancaster,
2016). As at the starting, we had not prepare plan for writing and structuring the assignment that
led the situation. I had analysed that each group member had various strengths and weakness that
they bring in the group. Effective team work and proper delegation of work enables us to use
different strengthen sectors of members to got desired outcomes. As I had critically analysed the
skills, strengths, capabilities and weakness of all group members and assign them work
accordingly that help to compete work on time with full effectiveness. As we conducted group
meetings to evaluate the work and all group members provided their opinions and suggestions
that helped to take effective decisions. Through evaluating the opinions, ideas and suggestions of
all group members enhance the critical thinking skills that facilitates me to take decisions
properly and attain all desires outcomes.
Conclusion: I learned various various skills through working on this assignment in a
group. As I have divided whole work and developed effective planning to for each section that
helped in putting all sections together in efficient manner before the date of submission without
raising any difficulty. Throughout the assignment I have learnt communication skills, teamwork,

time management, critical thinking and planning and organisation skills that help me to enhance
my overall personality and perform in group more efficiently (Malik and Venkatraman, 2017).
For completing the assignment work I have collected data and relevant information from various
primary as well as secondary sources that help to me include generic information that related to
other as well. It enhances research as well as analytical skills that help to find most relent and
accurate information and data to complete the assignment appropriately. and I have conducted
various interviews and questionnaires gathering relevant data. All these skills and capabilities
help me to perform various course of actions in future and attain desirable outcomes. I learnt that
there are various challenges and problems are raised in the group but by taking effective
decisions and formulating strategies all these difficulties could be overcome. I think, it is
important in a teamwork to know opinions of every group members and take decisions
accordingly that reduces conflicts as well as enhance overall efficiency and effectiveness of
work. By proper team work and support we are able to complete work on decided time.
Action plan: Through working in group. I have learnt various skills and capabilities that
help me to perform future course of actions. If I will get the opportunity to work in a group next
time than fist of all I will understand their strengthen and interest areas that enhances mutual
understanding in group. Next I will divide whole work in various sections and provide them to
member who is able to perform it properly then anyone else (Veld, van der Heijden and Semeijn,
2016). Next time I will suggest the team members to write introduction and first section that
work as a reference to write own sections properly. Experience that I got from current
assignment will help me to complete future work with efficiency. I will focus on making
effective decisions and implementing proper communication among group that reduce conflicts
and other challenges properly. Regarding any serious concern, I will talk to group members and
resolve their conflicts to run work in defined manner to get desirable outcomes.
4Ds of time management
4Ds of time management facilitate me to manage time to perform all task properly. As I
have use the tool to allocate all assignment activities according to time. I preferred to complete
the task which take few minutes to complete as well as it create momentum for working in the
larger project. It facilitates to provide more concentration and time on highly concealable and
important issues of project (Hammershøj, 2019). In order to complete the assignment on time I

have temporarily pauses some specific task that did not need to handle at that time. I have
scheduled that that task on after some time according to time. In some specific tasks that requires
expertise are reassigned in order to complete it in desirable manner. To enhance overall
effectiveness of assignment and complete it on time some unnecessary and unproductive task are
deleted form the schedule. As the adopting the time management tool helped me to complete the
project before submission date.
Do: In this step, various functions are included that takes few minutes to complete.
Acco0mplisgment is series of smaller task help to complete large projects effectively.
Defer (Delay): We temporary pause the activities that are not required to handle at that
time and we have scheduled it later according to time availability.
Delegate: We reassign the task to other group member that required more concentration.
Delete: There are various task and activities are not required to perform we delete them
and perform further functions properly.
CRAAP Model
For developing the research skill I have used CRAAP test that stands for currency,
accuracy, relevance, purpose and authority. Currency provide the timeliness of information that
when data is publishes and updated. Accuracy helped to enhance the reliability, correctness, and
trustworthiness of content (Schlesinger, Studer and Nagel, 2016). Relevance ensures the
importance of information in respective assignment work. Purpose provide the reason of
existence of information. On the other hand, authority describes the author, Spencer as well as
authentication of data.
I have applied the tool of CRAAP model that facilitates us to complete work with more
relevant and authentic data that provides depth knowledge and insight to readers. To improve
skills such as decision-making, research skills and critical thinking I have take support of
CRAAP model. It facilitates me to collect various informations through primary as well as
secondary sources to gain complete the assignment.
CONCLUSION
As per above report, it can be concluded that there are various skills, capabilities and
competencies are required to enhance employability. Various real life experiences and events
enhances communication skills and time management skills. These skills facilitate to maintain

effective relations among all group members and convey all necessary information to other
group members to reduce conflicts. Time management helps to complete defined task on time
and ensures that all activities are run accordingly time-frame. In the process of completing any
assignment or project proper planning is required and planning is communicates among all group
members that enhances oral and written communicate skills as well as planning and organisation
capabilities. In the process of completing assignment work various skills and capabilities are
enhanced in my personality that facilitates to perform future course of actions properly.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bell, M. A., Cake, M. A. and Mansfield, C. F., 2018. Beyond competence: why we should talk
about employability in veterinary education. Journal of veterinary medical education.
45(1). pp.27-37.
Caminade, L. M., Flores, L. P. and Sagarino, E. V., 2016. A tracer study on the employability
status of the university of the immaculate conception accountancy graduates:
implication of their academic training. International Journal of Education Research for
Higher Learning. 22(1). pp.65-65.
Clokie, T. L. and Fourie, E., 2016. Graduate employability and communication competence: Are
undergraduates taught relevant skills?. Business and Professional Communication
Quarterly. 79(4). pp.442-463.
Hammershøj, L. G., 2019. The perfect storm scenario for the university: Diagnosing converging
tendencies in higher education. Futures. 111. pp.159-167.
Hill, M. A., Overton, T. L. and Thompson, C. D., 2020. Evaluating the impact of reflecting on
curriculum-embedded skill development: the experience of science
undergraduates. Higher Education Research & Development. 39(4). pp.672-688.
Lancaster, T., 2016. Teaching students about online professionalism: Enhancing student
employability through social media. Social Media and Networking: Concepts,
Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. pp.1784-1805.
Malik, G. and Venkatraman, A., 2017. “The great divide”: skill gap between the employer’s
expectations and skills possessed by employees. Industrial and Commercial Training.
Schlesinger, T., Studer, F. and Nagel, S., 2016. The relationship between competencies acquired
through Swiss academic sports science courses and the job requirements. European
journal of sport science. 16(1). pp.115-127.
Veld, M., van der Heijden, B. I. and Semeijn, J. H., 2016. Home-to-work spillover and
employability among university employees. Journal of managerial psychology.
Young, D. G. and Keup, J. R., 2018. To pay or not to pay: The influence of compensation as an
external reward on learning outcomes of peer leaders. Journal of College Student
Development. 59(2). pp.159-176.