Personal Tutors’ Responses to a Structured System of Personal Development Planning: A Focus on ‘Feedback’

Being a personal tutor is something that most university lecturers experience. The role of the personal tutor varies and sometimes is combined with elements of personal development planning. This paper is aimed at practitioners developing and experiencing their system of personal development planning/personal tutoring. It outlines the development of a new model of such a system within the BSc. in Environmental Planning at Queen's University Belfast. The paper provides the context and rationale for the development of the system which aimed to embed reflection on skills development and experiences inside and outside of university within its format. Examples of this embedding via assessment, induction and careers events are provided. Subsequently the paper draws on interviews conducted with personal tutors of Level One students at the end of the first year of its implementation. This enables an exploration of how tutors experience and approach their roles and the ways in which ‘holistic’ feedback is built into the system. Therefore the paper interrogates the nature of ‘feedback’ within the system, the extent to which tutors believe they can be effective and the developing relationship between tutor and tutee. Thus the paper is intended to be useful to practitioners and concludes by reflecting on the system of personal development planning/personal tutoring, providing suggestions for its ongoing development.