Towards an epistemically neutral curriculum model for vocational education: from competencies to threshold concepts and practices (original) (raw)
Related papers
This paper uses a Bernsteinian analysis to argue that vocational education and training (VET) qualifications in Australia deny students access to theoretical knowledge that underpins vocational practice. Australian VET qualifications are based on training packages, which are the equivalent of English National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs). Training packages are developed for broad industry areas (such as community services) and consist of qualifications at different levels that comprise ‘industry’-specified units of competency. In 2005, 69% of all publicly funded VET provision was based on training packages (NCVER 2006: Table 4). The introduction of training packages caused fierce debate within Australia, particularly around the extent to which they provide students with access to ‘underpinning knowledge’. Supporters of training packages argue that they merely specify the outcomes of training and the criteria that are used to assess whether those outcomes have been achieved. In contrast, I argue that training packages do shape curriculum and have consequences for teaching and learning, and consequently for the extent to which students are able to navigate the transition between formal and informal knowledge and formal and informal contexts. This argument is illustrated through comparing the current Diploma of Community Services (Community Development) with the Associate Diploma of Social Sciences (Community Development), which was the qualification that existed prior to the introduction of the Community Services training package. The first section of this paper outlines a Bernsteinian analysis of the nature of disciplinary knowledge and its relationship to workplace knowledge and practice. The second section considers the extent to which training packages constitute curriculum, while the third compares and contrasts the two qualifications.
Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 2004
The notion of competence has received sustained and ongoing critical attention. Despite this, many important matters remain unclear. This article argues that much of the confusion can be traced to both proponents and opponents of competence variously sharing highly questionable assumptions about learning that revolve around viewing it as a product. An examination of various writings demonstrates the pervasive influence of these assumptions on both proponents and opponents. The result is ambiguity and equivocation as both camps run together items that are logically and conceptually distinct. It is argued that to advance these matters we need to distinguish clearly between three items-performance and its outcomes, the underpinning constituents of competence (capabilities, abilities, skills) and the education, training or development of people to be competent performers. This article identifies five pervasive errors that stem from a failure to recognise this threefold distinction. These distinctions are wholly consistent with an alternative conception that views learning as a process. When the three distinctions are maintained in an account of competence, it turns out that many common criticisms fail. It also turns out, however, that the notion of competence lacks many of the superficially attractive features that appealed in the first place to policy makers, politicians and industrialists.
This contribution to the symposium on Michael Young’s article ‘Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: a knowledge based approach’, supports his contention that curriculum theory has lost sight of its object – ‘what is taught and learned in schools’, and argues that this has particularly deleterious consequences for vocational education and training (VET). VET is unproblematically positioned as applied, experiential and work-focused learning and it is seen as a solution for those who are alienated from or unsuccessful in more traditional forms of academic education. This paper argues that rather than being a mechanism for social inclusion, VET is instead a key way in which social inequality is mediated and reproduced because it excludes students from accessing the theoretical knowledge they need to participate in debates and controversies in society and in their occupational field of practice. It presents a social realist analysis to argue why VET students need access to theoretical knowledge, how a focus on experiential and applied learning constitutes a mechanism for social exclusion, and what a ‘knowledge rich’ VET curriculum would look like.
2015
Inspired by Muller’s (2009) ‘Forms of Knowledge and Curriculum Coherence’ and his theories relating to types of knowledge and curricula differentiation, this study interrogates knowledge in a vocational qualification, asking how it is differentiated in a vocationally based curriculum intended for a new ‘fourth generation’ profession (as opposed to ‘first generation’ professions such as medicine or engineering). The study specifically examines and compares two recontextualising processes; a vocational, unit-standards-based qualification intended for the fitness profession and its curriculum that is designed to meet the qualification’s requirements. The analysis reveals the type of knowledge developed in both. According to Muller (2009), market-related shifts have given rise to many new professions – fourth generation professions which he claims lack the epistemic foundation of traditional disciplines. To meet the growing demand for these emerging professions, institutions of higher e...
Turning the contradictions of competence: competency-based training and beyond
Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 2000
The purpose of this article is to provide a critique of the idea widely promoted by governments and industrial parties in Australia that competency-based training (CBT) is a coherent model of vocation education and training with universal applicability. The critique is made first by way of illustration with reference to case material gathered in the course of a recent national research project on CBT. The argument is made that CBT, contrary to its image in the public policy literature, is not a singular and universal model of vocational education and training (VET). Rather, it embeds a series of radically different decisions or options with regard to notions of competency, and the use of competencies or competency standards. These decisions or options, once enacted, give rise to transformed models of VET. Shifting the critique to more theoretical ground, the argument is made that these models need not be seen as alternatives. Indeed, they are not entirely separate. Rather, they interact, support and/or challenge one another, as well as support and/or challenge CBT. The conclusion is drawn that, while all of these models have a place in the process of competence development as well as their particular strengths and weaknesses, models that maintain the tension between a focus on the outcomes of education and training and a focus on processes of educating and training, rather than resolve this tension in favour of outcomes, are most appropriate in VET. Thus, the models that contribute most to VET tend to be hybrid (e.g. education/training model, training/development model), mirroring the make-up of VET itself.
This is an astute and superb text on the nature of vocational knowledge. It will be of real interest to all those interested in developing vocational educational training and to policymakers in general who are interested in aspects of professionalism, that a notion of expertise will be clearly relevant to. While the work is philosophically based it is clear and precise in regards its focus and never loses sight of the applicability of the points raised. In other words, the analysis contains directly relevant and pertinent questions that need to be asked now and answered, that is, if the UK is to develop a coherent notion of expertise that is applicable to vocational knowledge, vocational practice, and to vocational practitioners. Most particularly, the argument contains salutary comparisons with other cultural variations on vocational knowledge and expertise, while not attempting to simply trump the UK model. The argument in a nutshell is that if we are to develop a robust and rich notion of expertise, and to have a system of teaching and learning based on that notion, we need to unpack our own cultural assumptions. We have to decide, in other words, how we might form a vocational education system that does not limit itself to what an employer wants currently in the workplace, an individual needs to get the next job, or what an awarding body thinks it can deliver. We have to expand our thinking and remind ourselves why we need to reform vocational education.
National Centre for Vocational Education Research, 2009
Getting the knowledge-skills mix right in high-level vocational education and training qualifications ANNIE PRIEST SOUTHBANK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NCVER NEW RESEARCHER AWARD RECIPIENT The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author/project team and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government or state and territory governments. OCCASIONAL PAPER The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) New Researcher Award has been created to encourage new researchers (either established researchers new to the vocational education and training [VET] field or new career VET researchers) to present their research at NCVER's 'No Frills' conference. The award also provides new researchers with an opportunity to have their research peer-reviewed and published by NCVER.