Projects on Competencies in the OECD Context - Analysis - DeSeCo

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Definition and Selection of Competenciespolicy-makers had previously relied on information about school enrollmentand attainment to monitor the performance of the educationsystem, there was now a call for information about system outputs.This situation presented several challenges. One was the need to developa regular source of data to provide indicators for the annual publicationof Education at a Glance. Further, whereas the broad categoriesof school curriculum are relatively well institutionalized and also relativelycommon across industrialized – and even non-industrialized –countries, the same cannot be said for competencies or outcomes outsideof curriculum categories. And although studies in a number ofOECD countries have conceptualized a set of skills needed for work,there is no general understanding about competencies needed for lifethat are recognized within most countries, let alone internationally.Thus, although there is a broad consensus that there are importantlearning outcomes that do not correspond directly to curriculum areas,that consensus does not extend to just what these outcomes are.The response to these challenges within the OECD context has beena decentralized one. Since the inception of INES, a number of differentprojects have worked towards conceptualizing and developing newmeasures of learning outcomes or competencies for both school-agedchildren and adults. These include the Cross-Curricular CompetenciesProject (CCC) within Network A, the International Adult Literacy Survey(IALS), the Human Capital Indicators (HCI) Project, and more recentprojects such as the International Life Skills Survey (ILSS) and the Programfor International Student Assessment (PISA). Although many individualshave participated in more than one of these projects, and someconceptualizations of particular competencies are included in morethan one project, there has been minimal conceptual or operationalcoordination across the range of projects.Purpose of this ReportThis report is an initial activity of a three-year OECD program entitledDefinition and Selection of Competencies: Theoretical and ConceptualFoundations (DeSeCo), which has been launched by the SwissFederal Statistical Office, which chairs the program with support fromthe U.S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). DeSeCo seeksto develop a theoretically grounded conceptual framework for under-10 ESSI OECD SFSO
Definition and Selection of Competenciesstanding the skills and competencies needed to lead a personally andsocially worthwhile life in a modern democratic state. The overarchinggoal is to provide general reference points for further theoretical developmentand future work in the measurement of competencies. Keyto the project is the idea that the work should be accomplished in aninternational and interdisciplinary environment, with the purpose ofcreating a common understanding of issues.The purpose of this report is to explore and clarify what DeSeCo canlearn from previous projects related to competencies that have evolvedwithin the INES framework: CCC, IALS, and HCI. 2 Toward that end, thereport provides a broad overview of the projects and attempts to identifythe theoretical and conceptual considerations that influenced theirdevelopment. The analysis includes both the explicit scientific theoriesand the cultural and normative assumptions that are embodied in theprojects. Further, the studies’ original intentions and how they evolvedthroughout development and implementation phases are discussed.The report concludes with a brief description and discussion of ongoingprojects, but does not present an evaluation of any of the projects.The research questions guiding the study cover the progress of theprojects from the initial selection of competencies through to theprojects’ completion. Major topics include:• Selection of Competencies: rationale for selection of competencies;advocacy of particular competencies by countries or politicalgroups;• Definition and Conceptualization of Competencies: Scientificand theoretical contexts and implicit assumptions influencing howthe competencies were conceptualized; and2Within the INES project, there were two other approaches to developing indicators going beyond oracross curriculum subject lines: the Goals Orientation and Attainment in Learning Systems (GOALS)project and a public opinion survey. The GOALS project aimed to identify a range of goals for educationsystems so that this information can be taken into account when developing measures of outcomesof education (Granheim and Pettersson 1995). The public opinion survey asked members ofthe public for their views about the importance of both school subjects and cross-curricular goalssuch as developing self-confidence and a desire to continue learning (OECD 1995b). Because theseprojects were not primarily concerned with the outputs of education, they are not analyzed in depthin this report.SFSO OECD ESSI 11
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