When we speak of competence, we refer to an ability to do something (a performance) to an acceptable level. We make a judgment, referencing the standard of the performance against criteria that are somehow defined. Boyatsis, in talking of managerial competencies defines a competency as:
'an underlying characteristic of a person which results in effective and/or superior performance in a job' (Boyatsis l982, p. 2l).
We contrast this with being incompetent - often a condemning statement - quite different in meaning to "not yet competent". We may observe a competent
Some of the items in the list are occupational roles that involve the incumbent possessing and using structures of knowledge (knowing) and particular behaviours/skills in order to perform particular work tasks. A performer will demonstrate these in whole (mastery) or in part in what they do for which they are evaluated by themselves and others, formally or informally.
We would expect the notion of "competence" to be informed by cognitive psychology and learning theory as these address the mental, conceptual and other capacities applied in learning and mastery. Values also enter into debate about "occupational competencies". Normative arguments highlight problems and tensions. A co-worker "should be competent" but we think otherwise and we make decisions about them. Politicians use the term in defining policies for training the unemployed and filling skill gaps in the labour market. Employers rue the lack of 'competent' engineers and a skill shortage in the labout maket.
In everyday language, "competence" references skill, learning or attitude. But are the concepts and frameworks we use to define and promote competence robust and coherent - it being assume as a worthy state and aspiration?
Boyatsis was interested in managers and developed a classification (an account of managerial competencies). He studied 2000 managers holding 41 different jobs in XX organisations. Such a framework, like those also of Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell (1979) and the 1980s National Vocational Qualification programme in the UK, contributes to debate on job skills and performance development. How can we reliably discuss such matters with weak understanding of what competence is and what the competencies we are interested are?
Can a competence be isolated or is it integral to the whole person? Can elements of competence include
a quality that a person has, like efficacy, which is the trait of believing you are in control of your future and fate. When you encounter a problem, you then take an initiative to resolve the problem, rather than wait for someone else to do it.
drives or thought srelated to a particular goal, like achievement, which is a need to improve and compete against a standard of excellence.
ability to demonstrate a sequence of behaviour that is functionally related to attaining a performance goal. Being able to tune and diagnose faults in a car engine is a skill, because it requires the ability to identify a sequence of actions, which will accomplish a specific objective. It also involves being able to identify potential obstacles and sources of help in overcoming them. The skill can be applied to a range of different situations. The ability to change the sparking plugs is an ability only to perform that action.
the understanding we have of ourselves and an assessment of where we stand in the context of values held by others in our environment. For example: 'I am creative and innovative. I am expressive and I care about others.' In a job requiring routine work and self-discipline, that might modify to: 'I am creative and innovative. I am too expressive. I care about others and lack a degree of self-discipline.'
a perception of the social norms and behaviours that are acceptable and the behaviours that the person then adopts in order to fit in. It may be a body of knowledge.
If these are elements of competence
Nonetheless, such classifications are shakey. Definitions of competencies are legion. They are represented in school, university and professional body curriculum standards. They are clearly evident in the test requirements for drivers and scaffolders. They are spoken of loosely when we criticise someone for being useless, "You are an incompetent Romeo".
We define and redefine. We catalogue and recatalogue. We develop learning programme schemes to train people for 'the competencies' and evaluate whether the schemes work - before we discard them. Translation of concerns for competence into meaningful, useful action is a problem given the range, scale and complexity of the competencies we associate with any job or group of jobs that form an occupation.
We can perhaps usefully differentiate between
Knowledge is highly sought after and guarded. Possession, access to information and know-how, offers power and influence. The temple priests guard their inner sanctum and companies guard their secrets and pay high salaries to retain essential knowledge workers and keep their loyalty.
There are causal (dispositions "cause" performance) and teleological (goals/ends) aspects of performance.
Dispositions enable us to perform specifiable functions either by training or natural endowment". Our skills, habits and faculties enable our behavioural efficiency. Competence holistically and normatively enables practice and action through volition and exercise of judgment, Aristotle's differentiated "five ways in which the soul arrives at truth"
Aristotlean art and technical skill are concerned with making or production. Exercising prudence or wisdom (deliberating rightly what is good and advantageous) are actions different from mere production. Competence requires capacities that enable enquiry, "determining what should be done for the best in the realm of conduct" (p 264). This is more than "scientific theory... (or)... the knowledge how of routine craft skills". Such a wider construct of competence calls for moral wisdom or judgement "rooted in rational reflection about .. policies and practices and what is ethically, as well as instrumentally, appropriate to achieve them" (p 265). So narrow, dispositional definitions of competence would have it that developing capacities for practical action requires merely the acquisition of specified skills.
Are education and training differentiated by what the learner knows and what he/she can do after completion of training? Mystique (the incantations of the priests of education of training) surrounds both education and training but in simple terms both seek to transfer and develop knowledge and understanding. It is a necessary infrastructure requirement (well-educated population and educational systems) for economic growth. Education for life, prosperity and good citizenship are human aspirations.
The quest for selected categories of know-ledge is associated with prestige for the individuals and institutions that seek to promote such knowledge. In some countries, educational institutions (universities ) with the highest prestige are those with the strongest representation in the arts and humanities: literature, history, lan-guage, philosophy and mathematics are held in high regard as are medicine and the law. Physics and chemistry seem to hold higher value that the application areas of chemical or civil engineering. The clean knowledge of pure theory and concept rather than practical know-how and artisanship offer more status. In the labour market those who work with words and ideas are paid more than than those who are skilled with machinery or materials. A TV newsreader earns more than an aircraft or electronic designer or engineer. equipment. Writing computer programs for arcade games pays much more than making the equipment on which the games run.
It has become very difficult to recruit able students to study physics at university, and it is a bitter frustration for their teachers that many of them will move, on graduation, to merchant banking or accountancy.
Elsewhere it is different. In Germany and Japan for example practical engineering skills carry greater prestige. Such comparisons lead policy-makers and educationalists to reorientate education away from esoteric knowledge towards practical, vocational skills. difficult education is a large vested interest in any advanced society. moves to set up technical schools in the late l940s failed. technological universities, many of which became universities much like any other. degrees in technology designated as BSc*, to show that they weren't real degrees at all. industrial training boards in the 1960s - abolished polytechnics in the 1970s - developed degrees in social sciences more rapidly than in vocational science and engineering.
By the early 1980s government policy centralised control on schooling through national curriculum and in HE controlling student numbers and differential fee regimes. Central = more emphasis on practical vocational skills/employability: what the student is able to do that is vocationally useful. the student is competent to do something that is useful. Education and training agenda placed under greater employer influence.
It is difficult to see that this has produced the desired results. NVQ Competence emphasis a reaction against the "scatter the seed" approach to training as a good thing in its own right, concerned with the general education of people dealing with general matters. The vehicle for this attempted revolution has been NVQs based on assessed competencies. The basic idea of competency-based training is that