Competence and Program-based Approach in Training: Tools for Developing Responsible Activities

The controversies that have developed in recent years in the field of education and training around program and competency-based approaches are not without reminiscent of those which are at the origin of a reflection on the question of methods to monitor, control, organize and shape innovation in science and technology "and led to the emergence of the notion of responsibility for innovation and research "(Pellé & Reber, 2015). This book is clearly part of this type of approach. Starting from a current state of play on the issues and controversies raised by curricular and competency-based approaches (Chapters 1 and 2), this book aims at presenting new theoretical frameworks, allowing to account for the processes implied by the implementation of these pedagogical innovations and, in particular, those which, at the very heart of the skills mobilized, promote a "responsibility" dimension. Based on a developmental approach to individual and collective competencies and their evaluation (Chapters 3, 4 and 5), it attempts to show how this approach can mobilize educational practices on strong societal issues, such as "sustainable development "(Chapter 5). Lastly, it aims to provide theoretical and practical benchmarks to help engage educational teams and institutions in these innovative and responsible approaches by providing a coherent framework for doing so (Chapters 6, 7 and 8).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Oct 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781119557067

Book preview

Foreword

Most of the works published so far in the Responsible Research and Innovation set (RRI, seven in English and four in French)¹ prioritize normative (moral and political philosophy) and descriptive approaches². They attempted, through different approaches, to deploy the concept of responsibility in order to make the notion of RRI actually responsible and not just an association of principles according to the trend like stakeholder participation or open science. Similarly, these studies were based on case studies and their evaluation. However, between norms and practices, learning takes place in all its dimensions. RRI, no less than the policy issues to be addressed today, whether that of the democratic debate undermined at its very basis by what has perhaps been hastily called post-truth or those of energy transition, which go hand in hand with the fight against global warming, cannot afford not to ponder the learning processes and proposals offered in this regard.

Too often, moral and political philosophy or social science theory are deadlocked on learning models embedded or imagined in their discussions. This learning theme was highlighted in Marc Maesschalck’s³ book in this same series. Indeed, stakeholders must be able to interpret the norms, as well as destabilizations, that they induce and in different contexts each time. Piaget, whose study is exploited in this collective work, spoke more generally of disturbance, rebalancing, assimilation and accommodation.

Though RRI, like many experiments described as collective intelligence exercises, calls for a broader inclusion of heterogeneous stakeholders, much still has to be done to know what to learn from one another and how to proceed.

This collective work addresses this in a comparative way (Belgium, Canada, France and Switzerland) by benchmarking between the programbased approach (PBA) and the competency-based approach (CBA).

The PBA opposes the course-based approach. It is more dynamic and demanding because it involves a shared training project, which is the basis of a study program (vision, values, competencies and organization) and requires a collegial approach for it to be carried out. The relevance of the PBA for RRI-type approaches is noted here, particularly because we do not always have all the knowledge at the beginning of the project that would suffice to be acquired from people who hold such knowledge. The program is also one of the important policy highlights in the structuring of any individual, but especially collective, research; we think of the famous "Programme Horizon 2020" (Horizon 2020 Program) in Europe.

The issue of competencies, more widely developed in this book, is even more valuable for RRI. Competency, or ability, is one of the possible meanings attached to moral responsibility, which is essential to RRI. It is therefore a significant detour to better define competency, and equally with regard to learning specialists. Most studies in the field of RRI, or forms of participatory evaluation (Participatory Technological Evaluation)⁴, or even for democratic decisions (participatory democracy), do not make efforts towards thinking and discussing the learning required for all these developments, even if they are desirable.

A theoretical discourse on PBAs and CBAs coexists here with established issues such as the competencies of environmental health engineers charged with the responsibility of advising public authorities on environmental risks regarding people’s health, the initiative of the Conférence Française des Grandes Ecoles and the Conférence des Présidents d’Université: "Guide compétences développement durable et responsabilité sociétale"⁵, (Sustainable Development and Social Responsibility Competencies Guide) or the ten years of implementation of European policy in a Belgian university.

Support for any innovation involves the concern for learning and the acquisition of new competencies. This issue is adequately discussed in this book and formalized as such in clear tables. Moreover, several sections are devoted to higher education which is one of the prioritized areas of RRI.

Although the term competency is often used, however, it is still difficult to grasp. It is often used lightly, along with its assessment: competency or more precisely performance assessment. Yet, it is difficult to directly observe a competency, which is conceived as a sociocognitive construct that can be activated in a situation. We often limit ourselves to observing only the activity and its results. Gathering information from subjects (their intentions, motivations, choice motives in the activity and knowledge mobilized, etc.) becomes essential if we aim at competency that produces performance. However, performance does not necessarily ensure competency. It is possible, for example, to succeed with erroneous conceptions, unsuitable operating procedures, or even by benefiting from a series of circumstances.

Added to this is the fact that competency can only be considered in a binary form (competent/non-competent), socially (recognition), as performance (a learned ability to adequately perform a task, duty or role in a situation). This last point equally indicates the relationship between competency, task and role, all of which are possible interpretations of moral responsibility.

Several background conceptions can be associated with competency: innate (such as inherited personal qualities), behaviorist (for example, objective-based pedagogy in view of performance) or constructivist (characterized by a wide diversity of theoretical points of view, from Piagetian to information processing theories through models inherited from social cognitivism) conceptions.

The authors of the book seem to share the idea that an individual’s competency consists of elements of different natures, which are conceived as resources for carrying out a specific activity. These elements are generally described as the classical triptych of knowledge, know-how and interpersonal skills, or in a more conceptualized form as knowledge, abilities and attitudes. They however consider that competency is not simply a summation of these resources but their combination in a situation, and even going as far as integrating environmental resources as elements of competency.

Everything said about competency here reflects the sharing of responsibilities as discussed in previous works.

Several chapters in this book take up the scheme of competency in four components⁶ : operational invariants (all representations of the situation and the activity to be carried out that the subject considers as true and relevant in the performance of the action to be undertaken), inferences (the calculations which allow the adjustment of activities to the specificities of the situation by selecting or modifying the rules of action and anticipations), rules of action (the results of actions that are assumed to produce the expected outcomes) and anticipations (the outcomes expected by subjects throughout the implementation of their activity to regulate their activity by acting on the rules of action or by re-examining the operational invariants).

This reflexive scheme is reflected in a clearer and more elaborate version of the characteristics of Aristotelian habitus, reworked by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu⁷. It is also promising and gives breadth to the so-called ethics of care or consideration⁸, to those that are concerned with anticipation, or even for those that demonstrate empowerment without significantly going beyond its expression.

The conceptions of individual and collective competencies presented in interaction in this book mark a break with those that make them a mere juxtaposition of knowledge, know-how and interpersonal skills in managerial-type organizational practices, or between knowledge, abilities and attitudes in the world of education, or even complex powers of acting based on the effective mobilization and combination of a variety of internal and external resources within a family of reference situations.

Similarly, one of the texts herein cautions and advises us not to confuse responsibility understood as accountability and responsibility as personal commitment. Directly imported from the business world, the first responsibility implemented in the transformation of public policies into technologies of change, often entrusted to managers or engineers, involves the setting of goals (standards or norms), evaluation of their performance (assessment), publication of the results (public reporting), and, eventually, the outcomes (incentives), which can take the form of a system of positive and negative outcomes. However, this conception of responsibility substantially reduces autonomy, the room for maneuver of stakeholders, by imposing a strong control system. More seriously, it attracts attention to secondary and passive tasks in relation to the core of the activities considered. It is our hope that RRI will draw the right conclusions by avoiding choosing an increased control that would ultimately be a sloughing off of responsibility.

Bernard REBER

Permanent Senior Research Fellow

National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

Political Research Centre of Sciences Po

Sorbonne Paris Cité University

1 See http://iste.co.uk/book.php?id=935 and https://iste-editions.fr/collections/serie-innovation-et-recherche-responsables.

2 The reflections carried out to date in the Responsible Research and Innovation series, which I initiated, now continue in this new series, entitled Innovation and Responsibility. In the next forewords, we will take into account thematic relations and references to the works of both series. This new series will be co-directed with my colleague from Science Po Paris, the philosopher Robert Gianni. This series is now included in the collection Interdisciplinarity, Science and Humanities.

3 MAESSCHALCK M., Reflexive Governance for Research and Innovative Knowledge, ISTE Ltd, London and Wiley, New York, 2017; Gouvernance réflexive de la recherche et de la connaissance innovante, ISTE Editions, London, 2017.

4 See PELLÉ S., REBER B., From Ethical Review to Responsible Research and Innovation, ISTE Ltd, London and Wiley, New York, 2016; Éthique de la recherche et innovation responsable, ISTE Editions, London, 2016.

5 See www.iddlab.org/data/sources/users/1215/docs/guide-de-comptences-ddrs092016.pdf.

6 Drawn from VERGNAUD G., La théorie des champs conceptuels, Recherche en didactique des mathématiques, no. 10 (2/3), pp. 133–170, 1990.

7 See BOURDIEU P., WACQUANT L., Réponses. Pour une anthropologie réflexive, Le Seuil, Paris, 1992.

8 See in the same series PELLÉ S., Business, Innovation and Responsibility, ISTE Ltd, London and Wiley, New York, 2017; Entreprises, innovation et responsabilité, ISTE Editions, London, 2017.

Preamble

This book is the outcome of discussions that we had, especially during trainings offered within the framework of the DevSup¹ project carried out at the IFÉ (French Institute of Education) of the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, which enabled us to make several observations. Firstly, despite the fact that educational policies are making it increasingly clear that higher education institutions are committed to a program-based and/or competency-based approach, these notions remain unclear or even polysemic. Secondly, controversies, sometimes very virulent, continue to pit the supporters against the critics of these approaches, and the arguments brought forward do not help in clarifying the meanings they carry. Finally and above all, the actors often fall short of expectations when it comes to designing and implementing new practices that these approaches entail.

We thought it useful and necessary to help clarify a number of things, not only to provide theoretical and operational insight to the actors concerned, but also to clarify issues that are far beyond the scope of the strictly pedagogical domain, as this term is commonly understood. By including this book in the ISTE Innovation and Responsibility series, we have deliberately considered that the changes brought about by the generalization of the program-based approach and competency-based approach must be, first and foremost, contemplated on the basis of the responsibility they involve, both at the individual level, for all trainers, and at the level of institutional groups, concerned with research and innovation, within which they develop their activity.

Moreover, while maintaining the three-fold objective of producing a book that is both theoretical and operational, and orienting the scope of questions it addresses within the broad context of the development of human activities, we have focused on preserving a great diversity of points of view. Therefore, the different contributors were not solicited because of their adherence to such a project, but rather on the basis of not only expert but contrasted concepts that they defend. Consequently, readers must ask themselves questions starting from this diversity, to find their own way forward, through nuances, differences or even, perhaps, antagonisms on some aspects. However, it is to a vision promoting the articulation between individual and collective competences that we invite the reader, so that he/she can have not only an explicit theoretical framework to understand the processes responsible for their mobilization and construction, but also that he/she can discover ways of operationalizing it. This is organized around three key terms: target competencies, effective competencies and explicit competencies. Naturally, we are aware that despite our desire to provide a broad view on all the issues tackled, some points still require in-depth research. For example, reference to humanism should probably deserve a thorough examination, of philosophical and political nature, to better reflect the debates it has aroused and which go beyond the ‘human/economic’ opposition. Similarly, the articulation between ontogenesis and sociogenesis that is instantiated in the spiral model presented in Chapter 5 would certainly require important explanations of the processes represented by the model. There are avenues which could not be developed due to the structure of this book, but they have already been identified for further research.

We hope that this book will be able to, simultaneously, according to its subtitle, equip the various actors to whom it is addressed with the development of responsible activities and encourage the exploration of new research avenues.

Catherine LOISY

Jean-Claude COULET

July 2018

1 The DevSup project, supported by the MiNES (Mission for digital education in higher education) of the DGESIP (Directorate General for Higher Education and Professional Integration) of MENESR (Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research), aimed at designing, modeling, implementing and disseminating a technopedagogical system to support the pedagogical and digital practices of higher education teachers.

Introduction

Thinking About Human Activities Differently: A Developmental Framework

The contemporary world is confronted with new challenges related to developments in human activities within an ecosystem whose sustainability is not necessarily assured. Henceforth we would find ourselves in a so-called Anthropocene [CRU 02], that is, in a new geological era resulting from human actions in regards to the environment: biodiversity loss, climate change, soil erosion and so on. Thus, today, there is the essential need to design and implement other forms of activities within a sustainable development approach. This is reflected, in particular in political and economic rhetorics, by expectations in the fields of innovation and research which are supposed to fuel them (see, for example, the role given to research and R&D by the 2013 Beylat and Tambourin report [BEY 13], in conjunction with the (increased accountability of actors).

Within this context, it obvious that education and training systems have to bear the main responsibility for building the competencies required by the changes to be made. It is therefore not surprising that education policies are geared towards requirements expressed in terms of competencies leading, for example, the European Parliament and Council to state as the primary objective of their recommendations identifying and defining the key competencies necessary for personal development, active citizenship, social cohesion and employability in a knowledge-based society [COM 05, p. 2].

However, the importance given to the terms innovation and responsibility requires some additional remarks in order to better explain the substance of such terms.

About innovation

Generally speaking, when we talk about innovation, it is regarded as a process whereby many authors (for example, [COO 94]) have attempted to describe the different phases that ultimately allow for the placement of a product or service on the market. In this sense, we generally distinguish between what falls within invention (or novation) and what is actual innovation.

Novation refers to an invention, a creation, novelty certified and recognized as such, as well as an objective [LIS 14, p. 3], and research on such is perceived as the preferred contributing factor. In the contemporary world, we have many innovations: new knowledge and objects, new human activities, emerging occupations and so on. They are just as many as they are expected and solicited. This is evidenced by the recurring use of the term creativity in discourses. Creativity is desired today in all activity sectors. It is required not only in the fields of arts, artistic craftsmanship and technical object design, but also with regard to entrepreneurship, the economy, management, administration, editorial activities and so on. Educational and training practices, which are more specifically covered by this book, do not escape this trend.

For its part, innovation does not refer to the invention of a novelty, but to the introduction of an element within a context where such an element was not hitherto deployed, and where it is invested by a set of dimensions of a social-ethical nature. Consequently, innovation follows novation in terms of time [LIS 14]; it may not even be totally new, innovation could correspond to a restored practice [HAS 72]. Innovation, which has long been regarded as a threat to the established order [BAT 96], grew considerably after the Second World War, in connection with the perception of a need for economic development; Schumpeter [SCH 65] developed an economic theory that reflects a sort of Darwinian perspective of the economy where companies compete for survival and where innovation is considered as the driving force of such economy.

Thus, the concept of progress is today strongly put forward when dealing with innovation, whether in the field of economics: It [the company] lives from innovation to innovation that follow each other, in line with economic and social progress [CRO 01, p. 18] quoted by [LIS 14]), or, a fortiori, in the domain of education where innovating may only be required if there is an aim to substantially improve students’ learning in situations of interaction and interactivity [BED 09, p. 36]. Whereas, [Progress] has a major flaw... It seems to assume that we already have, ready for use, ethics that determines the purposes for which our now expanded pool of resources should be used [DEW 20/03, p. 35]. It is therefore worth pointing out that the economic origin of the use of the term innovation requires that this term should not be addressed in the field of education without first studying the underlying social models responsible for its emergence and use. The changes it generates therefore call for theoretical, political and ethical reflection on the issues at stake especially as there are now a lot of motivations to embark on the path of innovative educational practices. The first two chapters of this book offer, in this respect, particularly useful insights to situate, in a broad societal context, marked by strong philosophical options, the developmental perspective subsequently adopted to more specifically address novations that the program-based and competency-based¹ approaches represent in the field of education and training, with greater emphasis on higher education. It is at this level that political and social expectations are mainly crystallized. This gives much more priority than in the past to a university and more broadly a school open to their environment which are providers of future competent and committed citizens in society. This is evidenced by the importance given in recent years to university professional training. The question then involves understanding how to link educational novations and innovations to the issue of competency development and, in particular, seeing how education and training processes can contribute towards overcoming the challenge of developing new competencies, whereas educational practices are still largely marked by the limitations of traditional transmissive teaching routines.

With regard to initiatives undertaken to promote the program-based and competency-based approaches, it must be recognized that theoretical underpinnings are not the preferred entry, as long as the importance of complying with policy prescriptions and the needs that they motivate and/or generate remain significant. Thus, implementation of the program-based and competency-based approaches, while they have been in existence for some years (as, for example, in Canada or in Anglo-Saxon countries, or even in certain European countries), is still quite pragmatic for the moment. As a result, their operationalization is a strong motivation for the development of research that would help to shed more theoretical light on their characteristics, while at the same time examining them in relation to the issues inherent in education and training, especially when it involves including human activities in a sustainable development approach.

Moreover, the massive use of lectures means the university is, without doubt, the most emblematic example of pedagogical practices that are deeply rooted on the transmission of academic knowledge. Higher education is indeed often considered as conservative [LOU 13]. Therefore, the program-based and competency-based approaches, which do not fall within lecture-based practices, could in most cases be considered as innovations.

This raises the issue of a virtuous innovation dynamic. Here, what we mean by virtuous is that innovation should not be singular, under the initiative of a local pioneer who poses and tries to impose, often in a fragile way, an innovation at the margins of usual practices [ALB 08] but rather that it should have a certain generality at the establishment level, and that it is sustained over a significant period of time.

The changes now expected in universities can no longer be individual cases: the program-based as well as competency-based approaches may only make sense if they are at least deployed at the level of training or an institution (see, for example, Chapter 7). Therefore, such training or institutions can empower the dynamics of innovation which should be created within them, because it is rooted in these contexts and more generally in cultures. Thus, Chapter 7 examines the conditions that allowed a university institution to support an innovation that contribute to the development of the institution, its actors and the quality of training offered. The dynamics of innovation can also sometimes be slowed, in as much as innovation is a recursive process with its iterative stages, confronting the unknown, unforeseen difficulties and the interrogating representations of the other. Wishes for transformation which were undermined by the changes in society and those imposed on it (notably by the massification of communities and emergence of digital technology [LAM 14]), are now felt among higher education teaching staff; their ideals are probably transforming, thus inducing changes in the ideal interaction [ALB 11]².

Pedagogical innovations and educational as well as training related research are therefore particularly crucial at this point in our history where we assume our collective responsibility with regard to our own future. From this point of view, Chapters 6 and 7 provide interesting insights into studies carried out in this direction and which are already showing encouraging results and opening up many avenues of work for the actors on the ground.

About the accountability of actors

Although, in education and training as elsewhere, innovation is a major issue in our modern societies, it however cannot obscure the issue of responsibility which is also crucial when considering education and training practices as a favored approach for implementing human activities in the context of sustainable development. However, putting forward actors’ responsibility, is not enough to make it effective and, as highlighted by the sociologist Salles [SAL 09], governance by responsibility faces a certain paradox. Thus, stakeholder consultation and the motivation to involve them in public life are encouraged, while, at the same time, control systems are set up for accountability that seem to be increasingly widespread. Similarly, since the Lisbon European Council (2000) urged the European Union to reform its education and training policy by giving a central place to orientation, the aim, for example, is to promote the devolution of the orientation and professional career project to students. This is perfectly in line with a society that is moving towards diminishing the importance given to qualifications, and responsibility is now attributed to employees with regard to their competencies [LIC 99], or even their employability [TAL 01]. However, here the question may equally be raised about the reasons behind making students shoulder responsibilities that, in certain respects, are beyond them.

Moreover, it is difficult not to notice the importance acquired over the past decades by the many forms of evaluation imposed by the logic of accountability, even though there is a growing advocacy for greater individual as well as organizational autonomy.

However, it is possible to give meaning to such responsibility. Concerning the environment, Salles [SAL 09] gives three meanings of responsibility: governance technique in the neoliberal paradigm, response to problems of ungovernability of postmodern societies, but also the construction of actors’ capacity where the process of individualization can be seen as a democratic achievement that promotes a social individual capable of criticism, autonomy and reflexivity [SAL 09, p. 8]. As for the devolution of orientation, it can also be a process based on autonomy provided that young people have the means to build an academic and a professional career project in the long term. To this end, access to information must be made easier, decision-making should be transparent and the elaboration of their project should be facilitated through mentoring with the aim of building instruments to support a long term development [LOI 17]. The same holds for the program-based and competency-based approaches and for which we adopt Salles’ [SAL 09] threefold declination of the responsibility it deploys for the environment.

The program-based and competency-based approaches, in relation to the third topic distinguished by the author, can be considered as a possibility for the building of a capacity for action of higher education teaching staff if we consider the process of individualization as a democratic achievement. This point of view is defended by Catherine Loisy in Chapter 6. On the other hand, we are aware that the program-based approach undeniably facilitates governability since each pedagogical team undertakes to empower itself; the approach is therefore, in connection with Salles’ [SAL 09] declination, some sort of response to the problems of ungovernability of postmodern societies. Finally, the real danger perceived and against which constant vigilance is required is that of the deployment of the program-based and competency-based approaches as governance techniques in the neoliberal paradigm, if there is an attempt to control the pedagogical activities underlying these approaches. Higher education teaching staff that make their representations and activities explicit, make visible not only the pedagogical team with which they co-construct a project and training program, but often go beyond (pedagogical support services, students, governance etc.). This forms part of the project and program collaborative construction process; in contrast, if accountability is generalized and the system’s intentions include controlling it, this visibility may make it more vulnerable.

Of course, beyond these initial considerations of innovation and accountability of actors, it would be worth emphasizing that addressing the issue of education and training, through the establishment of curricula and their possible articulation with the competency-based approach, presupposes that educational practices should be situated within the much broader perspective of the relationship between individual and collective development. In this regard, the history of education provides us with multiple examples of the tension between the two poles represented by:

– on the one hand, the necessity for human societies to organize, according to their needs, the effectiveness of their collective activity through the structuring of individual learning that empowers them;

– on the other hand, the need to anchor, as far as possible, pedagogical conceptions on the processes that are supposed to be involved in this learning.

In the introduction of this book, we therefore thought it important not to overlook these fundamental issues in order to shed light on the contributions that make up the different parts and chapters.

Insights into the history of education

From this point of view, the observation is quite clear: because of the lack of scientific knowledge, beliefs, ideologies, myths, norms and values have for a long time played a decisive role in the design of education practices. Yet, despite the development of a large theoretical corpus on developmental psychology during the 20th Century, we must acknowledge that the situation has not changed as radically as might have been expected, as evidenced, for example, by the current controversies regarding the advent of the program-based and competency-based approaches.

It is certainly always particularly difficult to adopt a very general point of view on a constituted knowledge field without running the risk of putting forward caricatural or even erroneous ideas for experts in the field. However, it seemed useful to us to find some benchmarks in the history of education to try to better understand the issues that come to the fore today around the issue of curricula and the competency-based approach.

When we look at what educational practices have been in history, it is quite striking to note that they are marked by two major concerns. On the one hand, this involves making sure that the individuals to whom they are addressed (obviously, in many different ways, according to the social categories, places and times) are able to play their social role (an aspect that can be described as utilitarian). On the other hand, this concerns allowing the individual to develop, as a human being, in order to live as harmoniously as possible in his/her physical and social environment (an aspect that could be described as humanist). In other words, education and training would be justified through these two essential purposes, each expressing a pole of focus: on the one hand, society and its needs; on the other, human beings and their aspirations.

Thus, for example (see [GUE 06]), it might not be entirely wrong to say that the education practices developed in ancient Greece, in Sparta, under the influence of Lycurgus, illustrate a focus on the first pole and aim, above all, at an essentially physical education, at the service of a society of athletes and combatants, while during the same era, in Athens, under the influence of Solon (advocate of individual freedom), focus was much more on the second pole, where a "harmonic education of the body and