Developing general competences through ethical learning to increase capabilities of university students

Authors: Boni, A., Lozano, F.

Group of Studies in Development, International Cooperation and Applied Ethics.

Technical University of Valencia

Contact:

Alejandra Boni ()

ETSII-DPI, UPV, Camino de Vera s/nº, 46022 Valencia, Spain

Abstract:

The objective of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is, among others, to adopt a comparable degree framework for both undergraduate and post-graduate studies. Different kind of studies, with a European extent (e.g. the Tuning Project and the DeSeCo Project), suggest that, on finishing their undergraduate studies, students should have acquired a series of general competences common to all courses. The aim of this article is explain how these general competences are connected with the capability approach (CA) through a pedagogical proposal named ethical learning, a model for moral education conceived as a construction of the moral personality.

In this article, we will present a short description of the ethical learning model and his importance in higher education. After that, we will establish the relationship between the ethical learning and the general competences suggested by the EHEA. Later on, we analyze the main features of the CA and his connections with both ethical learning model and general competences. We conclude with some considerations about the relationships previously established and about the improvement that the CA framework could make to the discourse of the competences in higher education.

1.  Introduction

We witness an increasing concern about the future of higher education in Europe due to two reasons: the will to be the most competitive knowledge economy in the world – as stated at the Lisbon Summit in 2000 – and the will to obtain a more integrated European citizenship. For both purposes, tertiary education plays a main role. Coherently whit those goals, the EHEA is being developed. Despite critics and problems, it is moving forward to build a unique area of European higher education.

In this paper, our purpose is to discuss the possibility of using the CA framework to criticize and complement the competences discourse in which the EHEA is based. Moreover, we will discuss about how the ethical learning could be the pedagogical approach that joins both competences and capabilities. Our suggestion is that if we develop the ethical learning in higher education, we will contribute to expand people’s real freedoms.

In this paper we will follow an analytical and expositive path. We will start with a brief conceptual description about the idea and the main characteristics of ethical learning, the basic features of the CA and the meaning of the competences and the difficulties of this concept. After the clarification of the three key concepts, we will establish connections among them. We will start with the relationship between the ethical learning dimensions and the CA; secondly, we will establish the connections between the ethical learning and the competences and, finally, we will analyse the links between the CA and the competences. Finally, we will summarize some preliminary conclusions that are meant to be an invitation to further research rather than definitive statements.

2.  Conceptual definition

2.1.  The ethical learning

Ethical learning is a model for moral education conceived as construction of the moral personality (Payá 1997, Martínez 1998, Buxarrais, 1997). It attempts to overcome the drawbacks and limitations, but also to preserve and maintain the advantages of other moral education models: those based on development and moral reasoning, those based on the emotional and affective aspects, and those based on building moral character. It also reintroduces the contributions of other integrating models such as those by Turiel (1984) and Rest (1986).

Ethical learning is a model inherited from the cognitive-evolutionary and Kantian traditions. It seeks to orient and stimulate the person to build his own moral-evaluative dimension, both in individual or private settings and in public or collective ones. The premises for this type of learning are: it resolves conflicts according to the parameters of communicative rationality; treats people respecting their freedom and individuality; dialogue is its instrument; it has a dynamic orientation as it is based on the knowledge building process itself; it takes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as its base in critically analysing reality and initiating the process of construction, or reconstruction, of those values upon which it is based.

In order to achieve these objectives, the ethical learning educational model works in the following eight dimensions of the student’s moral personality: (1) Self-knowledge, which means the capacity of a progressive knowledge of oneself, the auto-consciousness of the self, as well as its judgements. (2) Autonomy and self-regulation, which mean the capacity to develop the independence of the will and greater consistency in personal actions. (3) Capacity for dialogue, which allows one to escape from individualism and to talk about all value conflicts, both personal and social. (4) Capacity to transform the environment permits the formulation of contextualised rules and projects in which value criteria related to involvement and commitment are manifested. (5) Critical understanding involves the development of a group of abilities directed towards the acquisition of morally relevant information about reality, critical analysis of this reality and the attitude of commitment and understanding to improve it. (6) The development of the capacity of empathy and social perspective enables the student to have greater consideration for others, interiorising values such as co-operation and solidarity. (7) Social skills are involved with inter-personal behaviour learned by the person and make up his social performance in the different spheres of relationships with others. (8) And, finally, moral reasoning, which allows us to reflect on value conflicts.

These dimensions of the moral personality can be grouped into four basic categories as shown in the following table:

AUTONOMY / Self-knowledge and Self-regulation
DIALOGUE / Capacity for dialogue, empathy and social perspective
SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR / Social skills, Inter.-personal skills and capacity for transforming the environment
MORAL JUDGEMENT / Critical understanding and moral reasoning

Table 1. Grouping of dimensions of moral personality.

(Martínez 1998, p. 98)

Setting out from this model, we can formulate the proposal for ethical learning in the university as follows: educate professionals and citizens who build their knowledge individually, and acting in a responsible, free and committed way.

In order to achieve this, a set of conditions should be created which allows university students to accept a set of values as ideals, reject the presence of an accumulation of opposing values, and, above all, build their own set of values that permits them to not only reason and think upon them, but also to create personal criteria guided by the principles of justice and equality, as well as acting coherently as a professional and citizen (Martínez et al 2002).

In order to create these conditions, we may act from the selection of morally relevant contents and from the skills and attitudes on which we wish to focus in the teaching-learning process, incorporating final goals of an ethical character but with a procedural and attitudinal nature. To this end, designing activities that involve the student in an active and responsible way, while encouraging autonomy, is especially relevant (Martínez et al 2002). The ethical learning model also emphasises the relationships the students establish with their professors in the classroom, in the tutoring sessions and in evaluation. It is essential to treat the students not just as a means but also always as an end, refraining from exercising an authoritarian posture over them and taking advantage of the superior position that the professor holds.

In addition to the student-professor relationship, the ethical learning model emphasises the importance of the relationships the student has with the university institution itself, keeping in mind the values and opposing values that come from the social, cultural, economic and political environment from which the university student comes. Lastly, this model attempts to empower students to transform their own surroundings into something better, by becoming involved in collective projects, moving away from being a spectator and becoming an active participant, accepting the consequences of their actions and behaviour.

2.2.  The capability approach

The proposal presented by Sen (1989, 1993, 1999), Nussbaum (1997, 2000), Alkire (2002, 2005) and Robeyns (2005), among others, is one of the most discussed initiatives in the last two decades. This proposal is basically focused on economic development studies, although it is enlarging his influence in other ambits such as education and health in developed countries.

The CA could be considered as a “paradigm” (Alkire, 2005) or as an “alternative framework” (Robeyns, 2005: 96) which concerns all dimensions of our life. This approach holds basic principles and some characteristics that we consider very valuable to be applied into higher education.

Sen states that the CA allows “to explore a particular approach to well-being and advantage in terms of a person’s ability to do valuable acts or reach valuable states of being” (Sen, 1993). That it is to say that Sen wants to create another evaluation criteria of wellbeing different from the utilitarian and psychologist ones. The main criterion is not the utility obtained from using the goods, nor the personal satisfaction, but the capability to live as we would like to. This capability includes the freedom to choose between different functions we value.

The real freedom we own is the CA principal element. Real freedom means the possibility to choose between combinations of functionings that a person could obtain. Thus, the CA has two essential levels: the freedom level and the functionings obtained level. Those depend on the personal characteristics and the social order. “The core characteristic of the capability approach is its focus on what people are effectively able to do and to be” (Robeyns, 2005: 94).

As we stated before, the CA has a set of characteristics that allows its appliance to many ambits in which people act and are. Those characteristics involve an enrichment of our way to understand and evaluate the world we live on. Alkire (2003) highlights the following characteristics: multidimensionality, focus on human end, centrality of freedom, multidisciplinarity, complementarity, incompleteness, human diversity, values judgements, homo economicus complexity, justice and poverty reduction.

In our opinion, those characteristics have an essential ethical focus and obey to the complexity and multidimensionality of human beings. The CA must be used as a guidance or “regulatory idea” to create and to organize institutions and social processes, including higher education institutions.

2.3.  The competences in tertiary education

In the search for a common criterion to describe the academic and professional profiles (one of the objectives of the EHEA), the Tuning Project (González and Wagenaar, 2003) proposes the language of competences to express comparability among degrees in Europe. In the most exact definition of competences used by Tuning, these are confused with skills in such a way that competences and skills are understood as including “knowing and understanding” (theoretical knowledge of an academic field, the capacity to know and understand), “knowing how to act” (practical and operative application of knowledge to certain situations) and “knowing how to be” (values as an integral element of the way of perceiving and living with others in a social context). But they are also conceived as a “combination of attributes (with respect to knowledge and its applications, aptitudes, skills and responsibilities) that describes the level or degree to which a person is capable of performing them” (González and Wagenaar 2003, p.69).

What certainly is clear is that the concept of competence is not limited to the area of professional competence, but also includes a moral dimension. The core definition of competences includes “to know how to be”, and at different times in the study it is affirmed that the objective of university teaching should be to provide not only the specific competences of each discipline, but also other general qualities to prepare the student for the working environment and to be a responsible citizen. The Tuning Project suggest the following interpersonal and systemic competences for all degrees in the EHEA: teamwork and ability to work in an interdisciplinary team; ability to communicate with experts in other fields; ability to work in an international context; interpersonal skills; appreciation of diversity and multiculturality, critical and self-critical abilities; ethical commitment; capacity for applying knowledge in practice; capacity to learn (autonomous learning); ability to work autonomously; research skills; capacity to adapt to new situations; capacity for generating new ideas (creativity); leadership; understanding of cultures and customs of other countries; project design and management; initiative and entrepreneurial spirit; concern for quality and will to succeed.

3.  Relationships between ethical learning and the capability approach

According to Sen, development is a process to expand people’s real freedoms (Sen, 1999). Moreover, Sen points out the importance of personal characteristics and the social and economic institutions as key factors of freedom expansion. In 1993, Sen emphasized capabilities dependence on a variety of factors, including personal characteristics and social arrangements. Recently, Robeyns (2005) has highlighted three kinds of conversion factors that influence the capability set. What people are effectively able to do and to be depends on three kinds of conversion factors: personal, social and environmental (Robeyns, 2005).

The identification of these three factors implies paying attention to the richness and complex people’s essential atmosphere, but in any development intervention we must pass from evaluation to prescription and intervention (Des Gasper, 2004). That means that we have to question how to improve those conversion factors to obtain the real freedom expansion.

One of the key elements of conversion factors improving is learning. Not only an instrumental learning but an integral and self fulfil one. We believe that ethical learning must give a very important contribution to the development of the personal conversion factors. As we discussed above, ethical learning has four dimensions: dialogue, moral judgement, social behaviour and autonomy. These dimensions are key components of our personal conversion factors system as we describe in the following paragraphs.

-  The dialogue. From Socrates to K.O. Apel (1973, 1995), the dialogical ethical tradition is large and well based. The dialogue is the basic process to socialize ourselves and to self-learn. It is also the essential mechanism of historic and psychological personal development. The ethical learning improves our capacity to rational and argumentative dialogue. This capacity is basic to have an own idea of the world, to select and evaluate the information, to develop our preferences, to communicate our ideas and emotions and to justify our actions. To do and to be what we value is essentially a developed dialogue capability. Probably, the most serious freedom deprivation is to not “give voice” to people (Boff, 2001; Dussel, 2000). This lack of dialogue could be imposed by legal coercion or by the absence of public education that disables people to be “a valid speaker” for the decision they have to take (Apel, 1973, 1995; Cortina, 1985).