Generic Skills: Three problems that explain why implementation fails

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Generic Skills Three problems that explain why
implementation fails

• Geof Hawke
• OVAL Research, UTS

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A brief Australian history

• ACTRAC Common core curriculum
• Mayer Key Competencies
• Mayer competencies 1 ?
• Generic skills
• Employability skills

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International models

• SCANS Workplace Know-how in the US
• Two different models in Canada Employability
  Skills and Essential Skills
• Three approaches in the UK Core Skills and Key
  Skills ? Main Key Skills Wider Key Skills
• Key Competencies in Europe
• Essential Skills in New Zealand

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The conceptual problem

• I want to suggest that all these ideas have
  developed around important conceptual problems.
  In particular
• They are based on a false dichotomy
• They confuse different categories of things
• They draw heavily on unstated and unclear
  cultural, philosophical and political assumptions

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1. The duality error

• The notion is constructed upon the assumption
  that there are generic skills and other
  skills (usually understood as somehow specific,
  technical skills).
• Rather, I contend that genericness is best
  understood as representing a continuum along
  which we might usefully recognise some categories.

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ANZSCO
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Levels of Generic-ness
Occupations
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2. Category Confusion

• Two types of category confusion apply in all or
  most of these approaches
• The confusion of the general with the particular
• The confusion of things such as attributes with
  things such as skill

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2(a). General versus Particular

• When we talk about, say, communications skills
  as if it was the same kind of thing as the many
  and varied instances that we recognise as
  examples of it, we commit a common logical error.
• For a class to have a useful meaning there must
  be some set of rules that define which
  instances are members

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3. The mis-specification error

• If the notion of generic skills is such a
  useful one, a key question must be not why the
  various models share so many similarities? but
  why are they so different?
• I argue that a central factor in these
  differences are the various cultural, political
  and philosophical assumptions that have shaped
  them.

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What we mean by generic skills

• A set of skills that
• Applies broadly across contexts
• Remains essentially the same across contexts
• Underpins performance in different contexts
• Transfer from one context to another

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Why this matters

• The false dichotomy means that the things we
  try to measure or report on are actually mixtures
  of things, some generalisations of others
• The category confusion means that we try to apply
  standards of, e.g. certainty, to abstact concepts
  that dont admit to certainty

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Why this matters

• If we do not acknowledge the underpinning
  assumptions of a system, we cannot understand
  when it fails or proves inadequate

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What might this mean?

• It doesnt mean that there is no value in talking
  about generic skills.
• It does mean that there are limitations or
  constraints on what such a system or idea might
  be capable of offering.
• In particular, abstract generalisations are most
  often useful as frameworks for policy or
  practice, not as outcomes to be achieved.