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

21 Jan 98
J.J. Hayden
[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."
A flip answer is that competence, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However that definition has a
lot of truth in it. The point being that somebody (individual or collective) at some point in time, for
better or worse, proclaims that to be known as competent in such-and-such an activity or area, the
individual has to be able to exhibit certain actions. Once this "line in the snow" (State of Minnesota
Attorney General H.H. Humphry III) is drawn then its goodness can be debated. Until such time as a
statement of "competence = level of actions occurs," competence is problematic.
J.J. Hayden III
Academic Assessment Specialist
Georgia Institute of Technology
E-mail: jhayden@ee.gatech.edu