<TITLE: Competence, Qualification and Skills
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: behavioural sciences
DISCIPLINE: education
EVENT TYPE: seminar presentation
FILE ID: USEMP090
NOTES: continuation of and continued in USEMD180

RECORDING DURATION: 14 min 30 sec

RECORDING DATE: 20.10.2006

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 15

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 2

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff; GENDER: female; AGE: 24-30

S4: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Dutch; ACADEMIC ROLE: masters student; GENDER: male; AGE: 17-23>


<S4> erm first i will erm sketch a little bit and er the whole of competences and how how it can be er of a practical use so it's more or as well on the pragmatic er on the pragmatic side than of the theoretical side so erm and actually er we in belgium base ourselves mostly on the the dutch erm the dutch investigation so this is actually more for from investigation from the netherlands than erm than from belgium and yeah it's it's not really wide spread er it's er from a few texts only so where i got er the elements of the concept of competences , erm and in belgium and the netherlands they use competences quite a long time i think already but the problem was that erm the measurement there are quite different ways to measure competences and there was not one unified erm erm er measurement , system or or er one device <S1> yeah </S1> device or , to do it erm and then the text i use first is about trying to get the grasp on the concept of competences , and there in the text they state that er competences are always context-bound so you can't put it out of the context er even the meta-competences are always erm developed in a context and if you want to measure them you have to take in account the context , erm the second er element is that er competences are always a subject of change a little bit the same as intelligence or something you you it it changes always so it depends on the time on the the way you do it and it can differ every time again when you try to er measure it erm then the third element is that er competences are connected to the activities and the tasks people are busy with so if you are focusing on one perspective , in your work or study erm for example you are more likely to have er to score higher on that competence if they are trying to measure it for you erm , then the fourth one is that erm competences are always erm a subject of learning and development process and this is something that er was also in the pragmatic erm definition of weinert , it's er , you have to take in account that er competences arise from du- during the process and you have to have a kind of reflection upon the process to grasp where the competences can be erm can can be can come forward and where you can get them , and then the last one and that's quite interes- that that's in belgium and and the netherlands they use it quite often it's that er competences are all interrelated so one competence can be erm , made stronger or or can be more developed by trying to to integrate other com- competences into the the learning process to achieve more competences erm the key competences that they describe in this er investigation is er opportunity competences erm so to try to get every erm , erm every chance to learn something to to to erm reinforce your own your own erm , a- abilities and and skills and erm yeah just to take every chance you get there to get something more for for competences or something , then the relationships are quite important erm the way you act in a social environment erm influences the way the competences are built , erm then there is a conceptual erm competence it's er to how you can define things so like @we are trying with@ competences erm if you have a really solid and clear view it can help you to focus on the competence and just get in one direction and get more more into the subject you want to be better in , erm then organising com- competences that's it's a little bit like learning how to learn it's just or or or like management or governmentality it's the way how you build up your own knowledge your own ways of er using the knowledge and how to achieve erm through through your er your knowledge skills and and and competences to to er act upon a kind of situation and how you do it er what are what is the structure you use in your mind what is the structure you use in your actions like that , erm er the actions that's that's strategic er competences @er@ there are that's they are quite erm related to each other they are organising a strategic competence , and then you have the commitment competences and i think that's more er towards the motivational side of competences , so i think we find the same erm different things that er weinert says like social motivational it's more than only knowledge and and practice so it's it has to do with more sub- subjective erm point of views , erm then this specific investigation was about the measuring because there are quite a lot of problems with it because there are quite different perspectives it's a wide range of elements you have to take in account and that's why he suggests that er that the main erm focus you have to have in er investigation in in a measurement of competences is the integration of knowledge understanding attitudes and skills , again there is a wide the- there is more than only knowledge and practice the attitudes are quite important so it's again the motivational aspect , and understanding erm is to er upon the reflecting process that's also quite important they stress it in the whole investigation quite hard it's not only about your knowledge but also about what you do with the knowledge how you erm come from knowledge to erm , to act no not really to act but how you organise and and make your way to to problem solving and stuff like that , erm then their second er focus is that it's not merely erm on the behaviour that you you er try to that that you can see but also on the processes of the training and the learning so that's quite important if you wanna get to know somebody's competences you also have to erm try to find out what they are busy with in in their education and in their in their own er , training and and work and stuff like that , erm then erm if you want to measure you have to measure the actual competences and not the competences that people want to have because there's a quite if if you most of these measurements are with erm erm with interviews of people so it's quite subjective and the problem with that is that people mostly er know better what they don't have than what they have and it's quite difficult to to get to know what are the actual competences and what are the competences people would want to have , erm then this is i think it's quite interesting it's again upon the process it's erm you don't have to measure only effects but also you have to take in account the discussions that you you have with the with the interviewee the interpret- <SIC> interpretee </SIC> and the negotiation so you see that again it's they they stress the process the way people erm people take their knowledge skills attitudes and put them together to achieve something , erm , and then erm the last one is that erm they that the investigation here erm says that people li- like we we don't have a really specific definition for competences we we we are trying to grasp it but they state that every individual has his own idea of competences , everybody knows what they need to achieve for certain certain goal so , we can define it quite erm quite strictly but we have an idea what they mean with competences and if you wanted to work with people about competences it's quite you you have to try to to pick up what they think competences are and play on that notion that they have of competences , that's erm the the general er thing about competences , and then i told that i was going to do something er to tell something about entrepreneurial competences it sounds quite boring @i know@ but erm entre- entrepreneurial competences you can erm you can er translate entrepreneurship that's what it's about you can translate it in two two ways the one is of course the economic and enterpriseship and the other one is erm the more undertaking erm in in in the dutch er investigation they call it intrapreneurship so it's about er yourself how you take initiative how you how you go to a successful achievement of your goals you you have planned in for yourself , and erm , there they make a difference between the general competences and er domain-specific competences , erm the general competences are like we call the key competences and the domain-specific is like , it it's always connected to the goal you want to achieve so general is about , suc- li- like er we said successful life but but who knows what's successful life is that's quite subjective and domain-specific is always connected to the goal you want to achieve so that's not subjective that's quite objective , erm i think you can put the domain-specific competences more in the way like qualifications because they are quite easily to measure you can compare them erm internationally like we tried to to say last time and but the general ones they are quite vague and it's difficult to to get a grasp on them and in this investigation they tried to do it for for entrepreneurship and they make two different erm for the general they make as well er er difference and you have the psychologic er general abilities and then you have the strategic erm for for entrepreneurship in the way of enterprising it's it's more the economical point of view but but i think if you see it in the in the undertaking way then it's it's more strategic how you how you use your own knowledge and skills together , the psychological competence key competences in entrepreneurship are here defined as a erm personality chara- characteristics as creativity erm the level of daring er how you dare to take risks erm then also reflection , erm then there are some general competences erm , that i don't know exactly where to put them but it's it's more about erm their communicative skills and the skills to be a leadership er to have leadership and things like that to pull the strings of your own actions actually , mhm and then there is the personality background and that's mostly to do with more qualification things like er erm erm education level erm the age the years of experience and stuff like that you can measure them quite well , so i think the most vague things are the personality erm characteristics , it's it's most hard to get a grasp on them erm i think they make the whole er whole erm , the whole aspect of of competences more than like we said it's it's qualification and skills it's er like <NAME NS7> said last time not a (xx) thing but it's the personality erm characteristics make it broader than that , mhm <P:06> erm i think that's almost @everything@ i have here </S4>
<S1> okay </S1>
