E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

Possibilities and Pitfalls of Competency-Based Education

Masahiro NASUSophia University

1. Introduction
The new National Curriculum Standard has implemented with various features, oneof which is its unique reviewing process. It took over a 10-month long period to establish
subcommittees and working groups for individual school subjects since the first meetingof consultation of ministers.
Over this period, all discussions were intensively carried out by the Special
Committee on Curriculum Planning. The committee members undertook a radical
review of the current National Curriculum Standard, clarifying such fundamental
questions as what an ideal school of the future should be like, what academic ability all
children need to develop, and how the curriculum improvement should be made in orderto help children develop academic ability. The Summary of Issues released by the Special
Committee on Curriculum Planning explains the reason why the committee took thissteps as follows: “Before we begin to discuss the individual content of what to teach, wefirst need to look at competencies to be developed from the children’s viewpoint as alearner and define the competencies in light of ‘what children will become able to do’
through learning across the curriculum and/or individual subject. Then, we can examine‘what children need to learn’ or the necessary individual contents of the instruction andconstruct ‘how children learn’ each content imagining the specific children’s learning
behavior” (Special Committee on Curriculum Planning, 2015, pp.7-8).
The concept of ‘what children will become able to do’ is the “competencies” as an
idea of academic ability under the new National Curriculum Standard.
The Summary of Issues continues to state that “the direction of the committee’sdiscussion is supported by the accumulation of the findings of the scientific research on‘learning’ or ‘knowledge,’ which has been trying to demonstrate ‘what it means to learn’Possibilities and Pitfalls of Competency-Based Education

45or ‘what knowledge is’ ” (Special Committee on Curriculum Planning, 2015, 8).
In the Summary of Issues, Special Committee on Curriculum Planning raises at least
three important points.
First, as the basis of this reviewing process, it is clearly stated that there is a sense ofvalues that new curriculum standard has a perspective of children as a learner.
Secondly, as a result of reviewing the curriculum from the viewpoint of children,‘what children will become able to do’ or the argument of academic ability was placed at
the top as a goal, and then ‘what children learn’ and‘how children learn,’ which is theargument of educational content and method was positioned as means of achieving thegoal.
Third, to support the discussions as mentioned above, there is a clear awareness of
the accumulation of scientific findings on ‘learning’ and ‘knowledge.’
In the traditional discussions on the curriculum, the focus of discussion tended to beon listing the knowledge and skills that the children needed to acquire for the individual
subject from the perspective of adults as a teacher. However, it is more important to clarify
how knowledge and skills are developed in each child and help their lives. Unless thisprocess becomes evident, it is concerned that the children can not effectively utilize theknowledge and skills taught by the adults. In this sense, it is revolutionary in the historyof curriculum policymaking that, before examining specific content of education, thespecial committee began with discussing what national curriculum standard means fromthe perspective of children’s competencies and how their competencies can be extended
and refined.
For future discussion, it is essential to organize the concrete curriculum based on theabove-mentioned new principle and implement the educational practice. Toward thisgoal, it is necessary to achieve a rich creation of the new curriculum collaborating withother scholars and practitioners from various fields of study of education.
2．Research on competence and some related questions(1) White’s concept of competence
As described in the Summary of Issues, the concept of competency and the idea ofeducation based on it have been developed through scientific research on ‘competence’such as ‘learning’ and ‘knowledge’ of human beings. Competency has its roots in several
studies, but at first, we should discuss Robert White's work (White, 1959, 1963).
Based on observations of infants and young children, White argued that humanbeings have a natural tendency to engage actively to the environment surrounding
themselves, this natural tendency brings children the interaction with the environment,
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46M. NASU

and children expand and refine the effective ways to interact with the environment. This
whole process is as White called competence.
In his discussion, White defined competence as an innate motivational factor and therelational and cognitive capability to interact effectively with the environment.
Interestingly, in his definition of competence, ‘knowing’ does not simply mean
knowing the name or understanding the concept, but it also implies being ‘able’ toeffectively ‘interact’ with an object according to its characteristics, and acquiring andrefining generic skills of ‘interaction’ through ‘knowing’ and ‘interacting’ the individualobject.
In other words, White proposed competence as a holistic concept that includes the
motivational factors driving ‘knowing,’ the mechanisms of ‘knowing,’ and the way to‘interact’ with an environment that expands and refines by ‘knowing’ both qualitatively
and quantitatively.
(2) McClelland's concept of competence
While paying attention to White’s claims, it was David McClelland, who allowed us
to develop or downsize competence into meanings widely used today (McClelland, 1973,1993).
McClelland demonstrated with concrete facts that traditional intelligence tests, school
grades, and certificates of qualification, which examine possession and understanding of
domain-specific knowledge, do not predict job performance or success in life. In hisdiscussion, he emphasizes affective factors such as motivation and emotional selfregulation, positive self-concept and self-reliance, and skills related to interpersonal
adjustment and communication.
McClelland defines competence as the factors that are necessary and sufficient toachieve high-quality problem solving for the various challenging situations faced in reallife. Of course, knowledge was also included in the competence category, but its weightremained relatively small in his definition of competence.
The discovery by McClelland, as a natural consequence, will have a significant
impact on corporate personnel management and organizational management, as well ason the curricula and evaluation of higher education institutions that supply humanresources to companies.
(3) Expectations for dialogue and collaboration between factual and normativescience
For White, ‘competence’ means becoming able to interact effectively with a different
Symposium: Competence: A Critical Approach to Contemporary Education

Possibilities and Pitfalls of Competency-Based Education

47environment. McClelland, on the other hand, defines ‘competence’ as a criterion for
professional achievement and success in life. Although both definitions have certain
things in common in terms of whether they can individually and creatively carry out
appropriate problem-solving actions according to the situation, the directions of theirdiscussion are the opposite. White starts his discussion from the innate tendencies ofhuman beings, whereas McClelland starts from social needs and practical benefit.
McClelland proposed to define competence as the factors necessary and sufficient toguide success in life, but it is necessary to rigorously examine what success is in life andwho decides it. If this is neglected and the dominant values of society are easily adopted,
then education will serve to stabilize and reproduce the current social order and politicaland economic systems, and eventually become a social device to strengthen them.
Content-based education which aimed to select and teach knowledge and skills from
cultural assets such as academia, science, and art, may have had structural difficulties inconnecting with social reality, but that is why it was also ‘safety.’ On the other hand,competency-based education from the perspective of curriculum tends to be societycentered. In the competency-based education, the condition and function of education
depend on the two principles over the relationship between education and society: which
is whether education will follow social change (social efficiency) or whether it will
generate social change through supporting the development of the child who will be thesubject of social construction (social reconstruction).
As seen above, the concept of competency-based makes it possible for education to
be closely related to the real world, but it also has greater risks. In this sense, thecompetency-based education can cut two ways, so that it needs to be carefully examined.
Also, it should be noted that the idea of competency-based has arisen from scientificresearch centered on psychology. As seen in White’s study, it provides many suggestionsfor the creation of education based on what children’s ‘learning’ is and what ‘knowledge’means. This is a significant achievement in changing the principle of curriculum
development, which has been apt to focus on examining from the viewpoint of adults.
At the same time, in the competency-based education, it is more necessary than thecontent-based education to carefully and extensively discuss the values and the social
engagement that we need to aim for; however, science does not have sufficientmethodology to refer to the values. This shows that there are limitations and perils ofscience studies in the creation of education, which raise expectations for the leadershiprole of normative science centered on educational philosophy.
Furthermore, what can be done, and what cannot be done in the factual sciences suchas psychology and learning science? What can be done, and what cannot be done in
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M. NASUnormative studies centered on philosophy? It is hoped that these issues will be thoroughly
examined and that the two academic fields will continue to interact and collaborate witheach other closely.
3．Is generic skills substance or capability?
Competency-based education aims to enable children to individually and creatively
carry out problem-solving activities appropriate to the situation. It has been believed thatthe core of these efforts is the development of generic skills that go beyond individualsubjects. However, generic skills do not exist generically and noumenally as a separate
thing from the domain-specific knowledge taught in each subject.
For example, psychologists believe that thinking skills refer to the function of anenormous amount of domain-specific knowledge that is semantically and functionallylinked to various situations and contexts and is highly refined so that it can be freely
delivered as needed. When we see children able to solve problems through the uniqueand creative delivery of appropriate knowledge and skills in response to situations,contexts, and problems, we believe that they have a high level of thinking skills, but inreality, it is the specific knowledge that exists and functions within the children.
As Gilbert Ryle has pointed out, it is wrong to believe that there is a substantive powerthat produces a characteristic behavior behind itself (Ryle, 1987). Practically speaking, it
is impossible to teach thinking skills itself directly, and through each knowledge and skills,
generic thinking skills (or action or state that appears to be thinking skills) has always
been realized.
In recent years, in light of an academic ability argument and curriculum, there havebeen some cases where teachers have tried to teach generic skills one by one into children,
but they have fallen into the same error. Moreover, this idea turns competency into newcontents, which is almost impossible but also extremely dangerous and annoying because
it spreads misunderstandings about competency-based education.
Instead, the practical goal is to improve the quality of domain-specific knowledge andpromote its elaboration. In order to realize children’s generic skills (or action or state thatappears to be generic skills), it is necessary to provide lessons based on ‘a disciplinebased epistemological approach,’ and it is even more urgent to reinstate and expand
subject content research.
Interestingly, the same idea has been already evident in White’s concept ofcompetence Moreover, according to White, every child innately owns the emergence ofSymposium: Competence: A Critical Approach to Contemporary Education

Possibilities and Pitfalls of Competency-Based Education

49

competence and the developing mechanisms of competence, so even the expression‘developing the children’s competencies’ may not be appropriate. We probably shouldrefer to ‘facilitate to become evident of competencies,’ ‘prepare a learning environment
in order to enhance and refine competencies’ may be appropriate. From this point of view,
it is possible to define what teaching each subject means in the new National CurriculumStandard as facilitating children’s ‘competence’ more tangible, enhanced, and refined inlight of ‘a discipline-based epistemological approach.’
References
Ryle, G. (1949), The Concept of Mind, London: Hutchinson.
Special Committee on Curriculum Planning (2015) Summary of Issues.
McClelland, D. (1973) Testing for competence rather than “Intelligence”. American
Psychologist, 28, pp.1-14.
McClelland, D. (1993). Introduction. In Spencer, L.M., & Spencer, S.M. 1993
Competence at work: Models for a superior performance. John Wiley & Sons. pp.38.
White, R.W. (1959) Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence. PsychologicalReview, 66, pp.297-333.
White, R.W.（1963） Ego and Reality in Psychoanalytic Theory ‒A Proposal Regarding
Independent Ego Energies. International University Press, New York.

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019