Competence, Knowledge and Education

Abstract

Since the establishment of the National Council for Vocational Qual$cations (NCVQ) in 1986, the injuence of the competence-based approach, which underpins National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), has spread beyond its original remit and now extends into schools and higher education. Competence strategies are criticised for their conceptual imprecision and their behaviourist ,foundation. More significantly, it is argued that the competence approach displays confusion and incoherence in its interpretation and use of the ideas of 'knowledge' and 'understanding', and so should be challenged and resisted by educators committed to these values.

Connecting Competences and Pedagogical Approaches for Sustainable Development in Higher Education: A Literature Review and Framework Proposal

“…Competences are a way of describing desired educational outcomes [42][43][44][45][46]. They include cognitive, functional, ethical, and personal dimensions [47] and link complex knowledge, skills, and attitudes [48].…”

New Labour and the Future of Training

“…The NVQ approach is deeply flawed in other respects. In its emphasis on performance of specific tasks, it misses the varied nature of the contexts in which work takes place, even in one occupation or job, and fails to take sufficient account of the need for an extended period of supervised authentic work experience (Hyland 1993). NVQs have gained acceptance in some quarters, but they are not an alternative to the tripartite form of vocational education described above.…”

Competence and competence frameworks in career guidance: complex and contested concepts

“…Some of the more useful syntheses have been provided by Winterton and his colleagues (Winterton, Delamare-Le Deist & Stringfellow, 2005; Delamare-Le , who write principally with a HRD audience in mind; Mulder (2007), who focuses on the VET field; and Hyland (1993Hyland ( , 1997 and Weinert (2001), who examine competence-based approaches from a more general educational and philosophical perspective. In CG, Reid (2007) has made an important attempt to clarify meaning and relevance in the context of the EAS project referred to in the introductory section.…”

“…Some (e.g. Hyland, 1993Hyland, , 1997Norris, 1991) wondered, for instance, about the extent to which the notion of competence helped in understanding the relationship between propositional knowledge (knowing that), practical knowledge (knowing how), and procedural knowledge (knowing how to be), and that it indeed understated and belittled the role of knowledge and understanding, with the focus on skill serving to separate theoretical from practical knowledge and undermining values of personhood. Others found that, the concern with breaking down complex behaviours into more simple sub-skills in which novices could be trained stifled creative learning, glossed over individual differences between learners and, through the reduction of learning objectives to measurable outcomes and pre-specified ends, encouraged a mechanical ''teaching to the test'' approach (Barnett, 1994;Bates, 1995).…”