Competency-based approach basic glossary:

1. Competency is the possibility, for an individual, to activate an integrated set of resources in order to solve a problem-situation or a complex task which belongs to a family of situations (or complex tasks).

The concept of competency in the educational context, and consequently the competency-based approach, has been perceived differently by different authors. These perceptions are at times complementary but at other times contradictory. Below is a number of these perceptions:

  • For some authors, the competency-based approach consists in grouping a few specific objectives into discipline-specific competencies that are still considered and evaluated as specific objectives of learning. This approach equates competency and skill (Anglo-Saxon view of competence).
  • For others, the competency-based approach taps into those processes that are prevalent across disciplines; this approach is based on the ideas of “transverse competence”. (Rey, Tilman, Ministry of Education of Quebec).
  • For others, the competency-based approach is synonymous with development of generic skills, also called key competencies, which allow the individual to resort to his intellectual repertoire in the perspective of mobility and a changing environment (Bennett, Dunne & Carre, Mayer, Union européenne-Eurydice).
  • For others, the competency-based approach emphasizes life-skills oriented at the development of citizenship, respect of the environment, and maintenance of one’s health and the health of others (Braslavsky, UNESCO).
  • For others, the competency-based approach consists of more finely targeted learning, making it more of a contextualized knowing how to act as a preparation for integrating individuals in society, fostering their professional activities or enhancing the efficiency future learning (D’Hainaut, Le Boterf, De Ketele, Roegiers, Perrenoud).
  • Finally, for others, the competency-based approach is associated with the concept of interdisciplinarity. It consists of breaking the structure of the discipline-based school curricula, curricula that are seen to reduce the complexity of life (Lenoir & Sauvé, Maingain, Dufour & Fourez).

2. (Life) competency includes knowing-how-to-do skills and attitudes required from a student to help him/her act in a social context and as a citizen.

The development of life competencies by learners should allow them to manage better everyday social concerns that have become crucial for them, their family, and their community.

Examples: participating in group work, respecting a decision, and adopting appropriate health habits…

The life competency approach is mainly addressed in civics education, health education (especially prevention of HIV/AIDS), in the media, and in literacy programs.

3.(Disciplinary competency)is an integrated set of information and knowing-how-to-do used to solve a task within a discipline.

For some authors and in some school curricula, the disciplinary competency is placed midway between a specific objective (the skill of knowing-how-to-do) and the basic competency (terminal competency) for a given discipline.

Examples:

  1. Situate a historical event based on observed indicators (or events in the past) is intermediate between a knowing-how-to-do skill “Locating a historical event on a time line”, and the terminal competency “In a given context, and after examination of indicators, formulate a historical hypothesis in using knowledge and knowing-how-to-do skills acquired earlier in the course”.

Solving an equation of the second degree is intermediate between the knowing-how-to-do skill of “finding a solution of an equation of the 2nd degree” and the terminal competency of “solving a problem situation that relates to equations of the first and second degrees”.

4. Acriterion is a quality to which we refer when carrying out an evaluation.

Example: Relevance, efficiency, precision.

An evaluation criterion is a perspective that we take to evaluate. For example, evaluation used to decide on students’ promotion to a higher grade can be founded on his mastering some competencies in the principal disciplines (criterion 1) and on the progress made throughout the year (criterion 2).

A decision criterion is one that is used to take decisions. It is unjustifiably called “criterion”, as it is a mere quantitative or qualitative indicator of an evaluative criterion. For example, the student will move up to a higher grade if the first criterion is mastered at the 60% level and if his/her scores were stable or improving throughout the year.

A grading criterion is an expected quality of a student’s outcome. For example, an outcome would be satisfactory if it is relevant (criterion 1) and if the domain-specific tools were used correctly (criterion 2).

Grading criteria are usually outcome-based criteria. However, we can equally have criteria for procedures, used to assess the process used by the learner to move from the instructions to the product or solution. These criteria can involve:

  • The tools used
  • The procedures used
  • The way the student reacts: autonomy, cooperation…

These criteria reinforce the information relative to other grading criteria that are outcome-based criteria observed on the final product of the learner.

Among the many attempts to organize lists of criteria, Louise Bélair (1999) suggests grouping criteria into the following eight types:

  1. Relevance: adequacy with respect to what is being asked
  2. Depth: use of concepts from the discipline (the subject)
  3. Extension, transfer, and integration: use of a wide range of concepts, tools, and strategies
  4. Precision: clarity and conciseness
  5. Coherence: logical organization of the product (outcome)
  6. Language: respect of linguistic rules and norms
  7. Autonomy: initiative, thoughtful decisions
  8. Originality: the addition of ideas that are different from the conventional norms

According to Roegiers (2004), criteria relate the given to the product through two channels. These channels are the ideas (which we traditionally call “the core”), and the tools of the discipline (which we traditionally call “the form”), the tools being the concepts, techniques, procedures, etc.

5. Curriculum is a complex entity that defines the pedagogical structure of the trajectory of the learners in an educational system.

A school program includes the aims of an educational system, the objectives to be pursued, and the content.

A curriculum is larger than a school program: not only does it include the school program, but it also includes the pedagogical methods, the assessment system, the teacher training policies, as well as the textbooks policies.

Example of the structure of a competency-based curriculum.

A curriculum that includes the following:

a) A general introduction that includes

  • The General goals and guidelines
  • The expected profile of the students at the end of the training
  • The distribution of the different disciplines (disciplinary fields) and the study domains.
  • The methods used to certify progress from one cycle to another (or from one level to another).

b) For each discipline or disciplinary field

  • The epistemological orientations of the discipline
  • The students’ profile in the discipline
  • Educational and didactic indicators specific to the discipline
  • The competencies expected at the end of each cycle/level
  • A few examples of “evaluation situations” and the evaluation criteria
  • For each competency, a table including the intellectual resources that need to be developed (Information, knowing-how-to-do skills, and knowing how to be skills)
  • Information about teaching aids to be used

6. Evaluation:

“Evaluation is a process that consists:

  • of collecting a set of information (data) sufficiently relevant, valid, and reliable;
  • of examining the degree of adequacy between this set of information (data) and a set of criteria appropriate to the objectives that were determined initially or are being adjusted along the way.

in the aim of taking a decision.” (De Ketele, 1989).

7. The pedagogy of integration is a pedagogical approach which emphasizes the systematic organization of integrative activities called “integrative situations” that aim to teach students how to use their knowledge to solve complex situations. These integrative situations constitute the basis for evaluating the learner.

Reforming the curriculum within the framework of the pedagogy of integration requires implementing the following two consecutive changes:

  1. To implement integration modules that require learners to solve complex situations related to a carefully selected competency according to a final expected student’s profile. Teachers implement other instructional activities using their own teaching methods.
  2. To coach teachers to change their usual teaching strategies gradually in order to get used to more student-centered teaching strategies and to teaching learners constantly to activate their acquired knowledge.

8. Resources represent the set of elements that learners activate to solve a problem situation.

Pedagogically speaking, resources are not limited to knowing-how-to-do skills and information. They can be anything that helps students solve a problem situation and can be essentially either internal or external.

  • Internal resources belong to the individual; they guide him or her to solve problem situations. These consist of information, knowing how to do skills, and knowing how to be skills in addition to attitudes, values, schema, postures, …
  • External resources do not belong to an individual; they consist of everything that can be used by the individual. These include material resources (a tool, a text…), social resources (a meeting, a network of relations…), procedural resources (procedures manuals, regulations…), etc.

The use of resources depends on the situation as well as on the student’s cognitive processes: not all students will necessarily activate the same resources to solve a problem situation, nor do students use these resources in the same order.

Previously, pedagogues spent significant amounts of time and energy distinguishing among the terms “information”, “knowledge”, “ability”, “knowing-how-to-doskill”, “knowing-how-to-be skill”, etc. According to the competency-based approach, all these notions are considered as resources in the service of a competency. Although they are described differently, no precise categorization is thought necessary.

Resources, hence, are essentially information, skills, and behaviors (attitudes) necessary for the mastery of a competency. Students will learn these resources in the course of their daily lives, in their families, neighborhoods, but also, and more importantly, at school through the different learning situations used by the teacher.

More generally speaking, resources are the human, institutional, material, temporal, and financial aids that are necessary for the implementation or improvement of a task. A resource is always constrained: it is available for the implementation of a plan but can be used only in its present form.

9. (Integration) situation

Broadly speaking, the term ‘situation’ is a common term that designates the set of relationships between one or more individuals and a given context. This context is characterized by the environment in which the individuals exist, that is a set of events at a given moment in time. A situation does not necessarily present a problem. It could be a family celebration, a walk with friends…

In the context of education and training, the term ‘situation’ can designate one or two different realities:

  • an activity organized by the teacher in collaboration with a group of learners (class situation, training situations). In this case ‘situation’ denotes the interactions between the teacher and the learners during instruction.
  • a set of contextualized information that a learner or group of learners are invited to articulate to perform a given task. In this case, the term ‘situation’ is synonymous with ‘problem situation’, that is, a situation that presents an obstacle that is determined in relation to a learning sequence.