Projects on Competencies in the OECD Context - Analysis - DeSeCo

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Definition and Selection of Competenciesby the IEA and the International Assessment of Educational Progress(IAEP), were considered to be too selective in their content and toorestricted to traditional subjects. This led to the issue of how desirableand feasible it was to attempt to measure a broad range of areas notspecifically related to particular subjects. There were also political concernsand interests involved, e.g., the benchmarking approach was contestedby several countries, mainly for political reasons. Lastly, therewas no consensus about whether the assessment was to be organizedwithin the school framework, placing priority on results of schooling,or within a general context focusing on educational outcomes as awhole.The GOALS project focused mainly on the question of how to takeinto account national specificities related to desired outcomes of learning.Since in some countries, student achievement indicators were notat the top level of educational goals, indicators only based on subjectmatter or on cognitive goals were considered misleading. Personalitydevelopment, cooperation, orientation skills, and the effects of emotionaleducation were judged just as crucial as cognitive goals. TheGOALS group, composed primarily of Scandinavian countries, concentratedits work in particular on curricular objectives of education inschools, as expressed by official documents. Through this they also triedto capture general aspects of competencies, comparability was not amain goal.The CCC project was another approach intended to define competenciesin a more general, and not only curricular-bounded way. Thisproject was aimed at a broader issue, trying to identify the needs comingfrom society and the economy to education. Although the conceptof the survival kit found easy acceptance within Network A, agreementwas limited to labeling. Due to methodological differences and a lackof resources and support, the decision was taken to begin work by testingthe ideas empirically, applying only existing instruments, withoutfirst developing a general framework. The Feasibility Study was intendedprimarily to give evidence that the CCC approach could be realizedin practice. The different conceptions regarding the definition ofthe concepts and the underlying theories and different normative assumptionshave never been made explicit and clarified. Priority wasgiven to empirical testing of the concepts.16 ESSI OECD SFSO
Definition and Selection of CompetenciesDefinition and ConceptualizationWhen Network A started its work, the notion of “competencies”was not used. The discussion about measuring outcome indicators in abroader sense was dominated by different concepts such as non-cognitivegoals, goal-directed outcome indicators, non-curriculum boundedknowledge and skills, and cross-curricular competencies.In the early work of the Network, the concept of non-curriculabounded skills and knowledge (NOBS) referred to competencies notincluded in the school curriculum. However, eventually there was a shiftaway from this concept and towards the concept of cross-curricularcompetencies (CCC), referring to competencies that are included inmultiple subject areas across the curriculum. This change in the focus ofthe network from one conceptualization (NOBS) to another (CCC) wasaccomplished without significant definition and clarification, reflectinga lack of theoretical reflection by the Network. In fact, recent trends incognitive psychology suggest a scepticism about whether it is valid tothink of competencies as spanning different content, proposing insteadthat cognitive competencies are always related to content.No overarching theory in the CCC domain was developed. There aresome traditions in the domain of outcomes of education that implicitlyassume that competencies learned through school include those representedby the CCC concepts, such as longitudinal models of status attainmentin sociology of education and the human capital approach inthe economics of education. But it was generally agreed that althoughthere was no general framework that included well-defined conceptsfrom which indicators could be deduced logically, the work could proceedin a more inductive way. Developing a broader concept of competencieswas not seen as crucial.There are four general ideas that are relevant for the better understandingof the concept of cross-curricular competencies: the context ofCCC, the notion of a survival kit, the conception of CCC as a preparationfor future life, and, related, the learning approach inherent in thatconceptualization. Each of these ideas influenced the development ofthe CCC project.SFSO OECD ESSI 17
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