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1 – 10 of 125Michaela Brockmann, Linda Clarke and Christopher Winch
Though the notion of competence is common terminology in European VET policy at national and supra‐national level, understandings vary widely, both across countries and within…
Abstract
Purpose
Though the notion of competence is common terminology in European VET policy at national and supra‐national level, understandings vary widely, both across countries and within. The particular conceptions of competence adopted in the EQF are themselves problematic and the framework allows for a variety of interpretations. The purpose of this paper is to clarify those applied in the EQF and the vocational education and qualifications systems of particular European countries and to contribute to the development of a transnational understanding of the term, one which is compatible with a rapidly changing labour market.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on evidence from work funded by the Nuffield Foundation entitled “Cross‐national Equivalence of Vocational Skills and Qualifications”, the paper explores the various conceptions of competence in the EQF and the national systems – in particular in the sectors of construction, ICT and health – of England, Germany, France and The Netherlands.
Findings
Interpretations are located on a continuum from the comprehensive occupational model traditionally found in many European countries to the task‐focused model of the English NVQ system.
Research limitations/implications
Much developmental work involving all stakeholders is necessary to arrive at a commonly agreed conception. A broad understanding of competence would relate to the potential of labour, itself determined through the occupational capacity embodied in the qualification.
Practical implications
Zones of Mutual Trust need to be based on transnational categories of VET.
Originality/value
The value of the paper is in seeking to go beyond identifying differences by developing transnational categories and suggesting the nature of Zones of Mutual Trust for implementing the EQF.
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Relying on a design science paradigm, the purpose of this paper is to describe the development and evaluation of items for an ICT artefact that supports the assessment of…
Abstract
Purpose
Relying on a design science paradigm, the purpose of this paper is to describe the development and evaluation of items for an ICT artefact that supports the assessment of transversal professional competences within the validation of prior learning (VPL). To do so, the authors build a conceptual bridge between the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) and the European Qualifications Framework (EQF).
Design/methodology/approach
Design science research paradigm, in particular the participatory development of candidate items and their evaluation in a multi-stakeholder approach.
Findings
The authors find that a self-assessment of professional competences should be comprised of 160 items in order to cover the breadth and depth of the O*NET in the hierarchical taxonomy. Such quantity of items sufficiently builds a conceptual bridge between the O*NET and the; EQF.
Practical implications
When designing procedures for the VPL, it is imperative to bear in mind the purpose of the validation procedure, in order to determine relevant stakeholders and their needs in advance as well as the; required language proficiency of the assessment instrument.
Social implications
The innovative value of this approach lies in the combination of an underlying hierarchical taxonomy with assessment items that are developed based on the qualification standards of different Austrian professions. Together with specific verbs that were adapted for each particular item, an innovative self-assessment is proposed. Thereby the authors aim to account for some of the mentioned shortcomings of the EQF.
Originality/value
This paper applies a design science paradigm to develop an ICT artefact that should support the VPL. By reflecting on the design process, the authors introduce a theoretical bridge between the O*NET and the EQF. Thereby the authors aim to account for some of the mentioned shortcomings of the EQF.
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Diego Bellini, Serena Cubico, Giuseppe Favretto, Stefano A. Noventa, Piermatteo Ardolino, Giovanna Gianesini, Francesco Ciabuschi, Joao Leitao and Ajay K. Jain
This paper aims to propose an explorative metamodel of the key organizational competences management and presents a Web-based tool (Co.S.M.O.© Competences Software Management for…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose an explorative metamodel of the key organizational competences management and presents a Web-based tool (Co.S.M.O.© Competences Software Management for Organizations) for all-around assessment of the identified competences.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on the Great Eight Competencies Model- GEC, the European Qualifications Framework-EQF and focus group feedback, an online questionnaire was developed to manage the key organizational competences and to adapt the competence metamodel to the Italian context.
Findings
The competence metamodel described in this study and its newly designed tool (software with online questionnaire) could be used at the organizational level to improve productivity and efficiency by allowing an easy identification of key organizational competences and facilitating their acquisition and sharing.
Research limitations/implications
Currently, the metamodel is mainly theoretical and the software sustained only a partial validation.
Practical implications
The developed tool is a dynamic, easy to use and interactive Web-based software useful for managing the competences in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations.
Social implications
European official documents invite companies and institutions to work together and share human capital: the European Qualifications Framework-EQF, at the base of this model, facilitates a common organizational language for human resources management.
Originality/value
Managerial competence literature indicates that a comprehensive model capturing a link between the EQF and a managerial competence model has not yet been considered in the literature.
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Françoise Le Deist and Vidmantas Tūtlys
This paper aims to explore structural and systemic influences in the development of competence models and qualifications systems at sectoral and national levels across Europe…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore structural and systemic influences in the development of competence models and qualifications systems at sectoral and national levels across Europe, considering the influences of different socio‐economic models of skill formation on the processes of design and provision of qualifications.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a meta analysis of three European projects that used literature review, documentary analysis and interviews with practitioners and policy makers.
Findings
The main methodological and practical challenges posed by varieties of competence and qualifications to inter‐country comparability of qualifications are shown to be related to different socio‐economic models of skill formation.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to 13 countries and four sectors but these were carefully selected to maximise coverage of European diversity with respect to competence models, training regimes and approaches to qualifications. There is clearly a need for further research involving more countries and sectors.
Practical implications
The paper offers recommendations for improving the potential of the European Qualifications Framework to promote comparability of qualifications and hence mobility of labour. These recommendations will be of interest to policy makers and practitioners involved in using the EQF and similar instruments.
Originality/value
This is the first systematic attempt to explore the methodological and practical difficulties of establishing comparability between qualifications.
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Michaela Brockmann, Linda Clarke and Christopher Winch
This paper aims to explain the distinction between educational standards and learning outcomes and to indicate the problems that potentially arise when a learning outcomes…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explain the distinction between educational standards and learning outcomes and to indicate the problems that potentially arise when a learning outcomes approach is applied to a qualification meta‐framework like the European Qualification Framework, or indeed to national qualification frameworks.
Design/methodology/approach
The methods used are documentary, political and conceptual analysis, with some reference to empirical work carried out in relation to other projects.
Findings
It is found that there are substantial differences between learning outcomes and standards with large educational and political implications. Furthermore, the “pure” form of learning outcomes approach contains a design flaw, which makes its coherent implementation problematic.
Research limitations/implications
The stimulation of further research on learning outcomes based approaches to qualifications and the problems that arise in their implementation.
Practical implications
The EU needs to think carefully about the fitness for purpose of the current descriptors for EQF and whether or not it is desirable to move away from a pure outcome‐based approach to qualification frameworks and meta‐frameworks.
Originality/value
As far as the authors are aware, this is the first paper to draw attention to this distinction.
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Daniele Morselli and Annamaria Ajello
The purpose of this paper is to find a framework for the assessment of the learning outcomes of entrepreneurship education as a cross-curricular subject. The problem is twofold…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to find a framework for the assessment of the learning outcomes of entrepreneurship education as a cross-curricular subject. The problem is twofold: the first difficulty is the relationship to the general issues regarding competence and its assessment; the second difficulty is the assessment of competencies in cross-curricular education in diverse contexts such as school and work.
Design/methodology/approach
The European key competence for lifelong learning of the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and the European qualification framework (EQF) are convenient to benchmark the outcomes of enterprise education. In order to assess and develop competence in vocational students, educators should design real life problem solving situations, which are new for the students and closely related to their vocations.
Findings
The study describes an assessment process of the learning outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills and competence. While the authors tested knowledge by giving the students open-ended questions, the authors assessed the skills and competence with a practical problem concerning the students’ vocational discipline to be solved in groups.
Research limitations/implications
The paper calls for a better alignment between work experience, teaching for competence and assessment of key competences – such as the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship – taught as a cross curricular subject.
Originality/value
The assessment makes use of a theoretically grounded definition of competence, and considers varied forms of evaluation of entrepreneurship education. Educators can use it across Europe as it refers to a common background, the European key competences and the EQF, and it promotes the students’ transitions to work and mobility. It is rigorous, and, at the same time, adaptable to the context. It is meaningful for the various stakeholders at various levels: students, employers, schools, workplaces and institutions.
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Jörg Markowitsch and Claudia Plaimauer
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential of already existing skills and competence ontologies to benefit European transparency tools and especially the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential of already existing skills and competence ontologies to benefit European transparency tools and especially the implementation of the European Qualification Framework. Furthermore, it asks whether any of them could serve as a starting point to develop an International Standard Classification of Skills and Competences to supplement ISCED and ISCO.
Design/methodology/approach
This contribution contains a comparative analyses of three systems providing ontologies of skills and competences – DISCO, O*NET and Taxonomy_DB – under terminological and pragmatic aspects.
Findings
The analysis identifies O*NET as the most promising candidate to serve European transparency instruments and the EQF. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the development of an International Standard Classification of Skills and Competences, that is suitable for statistical purposes as well as appropriate for practical applications in human resource management and in the area of education, would have to integrate very diverging demands, which so far are being best met by O*NET and DISCO.
Research/limitations/implications
The depth of the analysis is not sufficient to serve as an exhaustive guideline to design an International Standard Classification of Skills and Competences.
Practical implications
The paper shows the potential of a future International Standard Classification of Skills and Competences for the EQF, for European transparency tools, and for statistical purposes.
Originality/value
This article brings a new topic, namely ontologies for skills and competences, into the European debate about competences and their visibility and validation.
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The purpose of this paper is to question the appropriateness of a proposal for a new European Qualifications Framework. The framework has three perspectives: historical;…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to question the appropriateness of a proposal for a new European Qualifications Framework. The framework has three perspectives: historical; analytical; and national.
Design/methodology/approach
The approaches are diverse since the first insists on the institutional and decision‐making processes at European level questioning the impact that could have on the recently formalised Open Method of Coordination. The second goes into more detailed analyses of the instrument itself and of its shortcomings both in conceptual terms and on its pragmatic ones. The last approach is a comparative one by which the French system is “benchmarked” against EQF guidelines.
Findings
The main conclusion is that there is obviously a political will to question the role and the structure of qualifications in view of an economy and a society of knowledge and that research has much to contribute – on very different levels – like the three chosen for this article.
Research limitations/implications
Choosing to mix three quite different approaches in one short text is an attempt to be valued since it shows the different aspects under which a so‐called “neutral” instrument needs to be regarded.
Practical implications
Practically, this speaks for the further involvement of research in the present, very institutional and organisational discussions on European qualifications.
Originality/value
In terms of research, it is seldom that these various levels are considered together. The article proves that there is a case to do so.
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The purpose of this paper is to review three international frameworks, including the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), in relation to one country’s…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review three international frameworks, including the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), in relation to one country’s higher professional and vocational education system.
Design/methodology/approach
The frameworks were examined in the context of English higher work-related education, and areas of mismatch identified. These were investigated to identify the extent to which they were due to weaknesses in the national system or to limiting assumptions contained in the frameworks.
Findings
Assumptions based on stages of education are problematic in the context of lifelong higher and professional education, while more open, lifelong-learning oriented assumptions can be too skeletal to aid comparisons between systems of initial vocational education and training. Particular problems are identified with assumptions contained in the ISCED that do not reflect the reality of professional education.
Practical implications
International frameworks need to take account of patterns of learning that take place outside of formal institutions and throughout life, but which lead to equivalent outcomes. Nevertheless, it is not adequate to substitute assumptions based only on the level of achievement.
Social implications
The assumptions underpinning the ISCED in particular mean that equivalent achievements in different systems can be classified differently, leading to under-reporting of individual achievements, a lack of comparability in international statistics, and potential for policy distortion.
Originality/value
The paper builds on the work of Hippach-Schneider et al. by providing additional evidence, from a different national context, for issues relating to the ISCED in the context of higher professional and vocational education, and extends this analysis to the two major European frameworks.
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This article aims to take up a mirror image‐oriented position of the EQF and the announced ECVET system. It seeks to be concerned with the effects that the EQF transformation…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to take up a mirror image‐oriented position of the EQF and the announced ECVET system. It seeks to be concerned with the effects that the EQF transformation process into the respective NQF might have on the underlying systems of vocational education and training.
Design/methodology/approach
A comparison is drawn between the competence development the four different VET systems in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK initiated by the identical qualification demands of the sector of aircraft industry (AIRBUS plants in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK). This serves as a finding for the evaluation of the EQF and the effects it will could on the sector of the European aircraft industry.
Findings
Three hypothesises on: convergence of skill requirements because of the technologies and procedures tend to become the same all over the world if the same products are manufactured; divergence of the national VET systems as a consequence of adaptation such requirements; and a structural reference between requirements and the development of competence, are tested and validated.
Research limitations/implications
The research was confined to the aircraft and space industry and one enterprise co‐operating in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK.
Practical implications
It was possible to establish two European occupational profiles for this sector (aircraft mechanic and avionic). The applicability of a method for depicting competence development based on Havighurst's theory of developmental tasks, is expected to be improved.
Originality/value
A method of evaluating competence development was applied that can be used, despite some differences.
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