Using NVQs to promote Learning LO10339

pcapper@actrix.gen.nz
Sat, 5 Oct 1996 16:39:02 +1200 (NZST)

Replying to LO10319 --

My second observation on this topic concerns the nature of competence and
expertise in rapidly changing environments. In relatively stable settings
competence is usually operationally thought of as the capacity to do a
predetermined task over and over again, or else to recognise
pre-identified patterns in events, and to apply Standard Operating
Procedures (SOP's) applicable to that pattern.

In rapidly changing or uncertain settings the foregoing idea remains
necessary, but is no longer sufficient. People only remain competent in
such environments when they are able to deal with the unexpected, and to
apply deeper levels of knowledge about processes to novel situations.
there is also the problem of innovation - which only occurs when SOP's are
REJECTED. This, of course, is the same stuff we have all been discussing
so energetically under the heading of 'The Unlearning Organisation.'

Competence in conditions of uncertainty create big problems for
standardised qualifications frameworks such as NVQ's. How do you validate
STANDARDS when the target keeps moving? How can you keep things moving at
a reasonable cost when you need to change the curriculum all the time? How
do you assess performance when the student is problem solving and the
assessor has never encountered the problem before? How do you identify and
capture learning events when they are continuously embedded in productive
work activities?

There are answers to these questions, but not if you have defined your
competence profile in terms of specific lists of discrete tasks. In
England's NVQ's, Scotlands SVQ's, New Zealand's NQF, and American
workplaces devoted to modified DACUM, we often find that the instruments
against which competence is measured actually kill off the sorts of double
loop learning that is necessary to be competent in conditions of
uncertainty.

Do you detect some passion about this topic? Yes, you do.

Phillip Capper
Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business
Wellington
New Zealand

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pcapper@actrix.gen.nz

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