21 Jan 98 Ernie Franklin - Instructional Technology Forum ...

21 Jan 98.b
Nada Dabbagh
[quoting Bos, 21 Jan 98] The point of not having definitions is an interesting one! I am busy at
the moment to get clear a complete description of "competence." That is not easy, because there
are as many definitions as authors, and all definitions have fuzzy essences. Everyone has a certain
feeling about a description of "competence," but there is no consensus at all about an exact
description and that creates extreme confusion. But how do you handle such things like that,
because I need for the conceptual framework of my research a clear description of "competence."
I think the best way to handle this is to make up your own definition of "competence." The one that best
fits the needs of your research. You can do that by selecting the attributes of the concept "competence"
that your research is involved which might mean drawing from several other definitions by different
authors. If you look up Perkins By Design book (I forgot the correct citation for this book but I would be
glad to look it up if needed), he has a very innovative framework of dealing with facts and concepts and
how you can redesign their meaning to make them dynamic and contextualized. It helps dealing with
"fuzzy" concepts or as Steve Tripp [20 Jan 98] puts it "concepts with fuzzy essences" which often lead
learners to "inert" knowledge acquisition.