Complete thesis - Murdoch University

• the evolution of a discipline towards professional status may be aided by the developmentof a BoK (eg the Software Engineering BoK (SWEBOK) project (Bourque andDupuis, 2001)).The expectation in each of these is that the BoK is not an inventory of all that must beknown by a practitioner within the discipline, but that the core knowledge will be known toall, probably by the end of some four years of professional practice.As one example of this, and related to curriculum development, Computing Curriculum 2001statesone of our goals in proposing curricular recommendations is to keep the requiredcomponent of the body of knowledge as small as possible. To implement this principle,the CC2001 Task Force has defined a minimal core consisting of those unitsfor which there is a broad consensus that the corresponding material is essentialto anyone obtaining an undergraduate degree in this field.(Engel and Roberts, 2001, p 14)Martin et al (2005) suggests that the implication of this ‘minimalist’ philosophy is that thecompetency sought should be addressed from two perspectives, that of• science – the set of scientific and mathematical tools used to solve (engineering) problems• practice – the recognition and formulation of a problem (not necessarily engineering)and its solution.However, as the latter requires experience and improves over time, it may not be assumedon graduation (Scott and Yates, 2002). The focus is therefore placed purely on technicalaspects of the discipline, and it follows that competency levels are determined by theseaspects. Non-technical competencies (eg communications, team-work, lifelong learning), arealso not an assumption on graduation. Yet, increasingly, professional accreditation placessome emphasis on this aspect within formal education, while practitioner studies indicatethese as keys to practitioner competency, suggesting some BoKs may be out of step with therealities of discipline practice.Levels of competenceCompetence, or mastery may be defined in a variety of ways. When used in a narrow sense,it may refer to a demonstrated capacity to do a specific task by detailed specification of62