Can performance‐related learning outcomes have standards?
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explain the distinction between educational standards and learning outcomes and to indicate the problems that potentially arise when a learning outcomes approach is applied to a qualification meta‐framework like the European Qualification Framework, or indeed to national qualification frameworks.
Design/methodology/approach
The methods used are documentary, political and conceptual analysis, with some reference to empirical work carried out in relation to other projects.
Findings
It is found that there are substantial differences between learning outcomes and standards with large educational and political implications. Furthermore, the “pure” form of learning outcomes approach contains a design flaw, which makes its coherent implementation problematic.
Research limitations/implications
The stimulation of further research on learning outcomes based approaches to qualifications and the problems that arise in their implementation.
Practical implications
The EU needs to think carefully about the fitness for purpose of the current descriptors for EQF and whether or not it is desirable to move away from a pure outcome‐based approach to qualification frameworks and meta‐frameworks.
Originality/value
As far as the authors are aware, this is the first paper to draw attention to this distinction.
Keywords
Citation
Brockmann, M., Clarke, L. and Winch, C. (2008), "Can performance‐related learning outcomes have standards?", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 32 No. 2/3, pp. 99-113. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090590810861659
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2008, Emerald Group Publishing Limited