The normative aspects of this construction of competence are as follows.
This philosophical position overcomes the Cartesian problem of separating the body from the soul or the possibility of category mistakes in cognitive psychology in inventing what may be unnecessary "ghosts in the machine", for performance and action, e.g. deep structured conceptual knowledge. However, the movement is equivocal on this point. In its early versions (e.g. The National Training Board, 1990, 1991), CBT was overtly behaviourist, in that it equated knowing with doing. However, its more recent manifestations (e.g. The National Training Board, 1992) regard knowledge as a separate phenomenon which underlies performance. The "right" values for action in meeting standards are also regarded as necessary, but not as a separate legitimate curricular concern. Thus, the pre-emptive normative position is attached to cognitive structures and values, but in a deputed way. This movement from a singular construction of knowledge and action to a dualistic construction, which appropriates cognitive psychology, has occurred safely for the CBT movement. It has not disturbed its taken-for-granted good or its definitions of appropriate performance in achieving that good. And it has pushed aside the implicit value of cognitive psychology for conceptual understanding.
Through this change, the CBT movement seems to have achieved a kind of colonisation of cognitive psychology. This has been achieved partly because of the vulnerability of the non-normative position that cognitive psychology purports to adopt (despite its continuing emphasis on so-called deep structured conceptual understanding, or knowledge "that"). Thus CBT can adopt the contributions of cognitive psychology in explaining the mechanisms of action for the particular normative ends of CBT; namely securing the immediate needs of industry. In addition, cognitive psychology offers dignification to the movement, as the movement seeks legitimation. CBT can adopt a set of principles that have currency in academic discourse and gain greater respectability. For example, it can justify its position on skilful technical ends and observable performance directed at these ends, by recognising the role played by the cognitive structures that have been posited for expertise.
Yet, despite this current position of CBT, it seems unable to resolve tensions with other institutionalised forms of education with their own constructions of competence, which reify conceptual understanding (Stevenson, 1993a).