Outcomes, Learning And The Curriculum

Implications For Nvqs, Gnvqs And Other Qualifications

John Burke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781135720599
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

This book provides an account of the curricular consequences of the outcomes approach to education (NVQs GNVQs etc). It contains contributions from leading experts in the field and, as such, is likely to become the core text in this area. An initial discussion of the main themes leads the reader into a discussion of key ideas and the theory behind the Outcomes approach covering, in addition, issues concerning standards and quality. Areas of the curriculum covered include assessment, modularization, flexible learning and work-based learning, higher level competences and the autonomous learner. It should be of interest to all concerned with the development of the curriculum, ranging from school sixth forms through further and higher education to professional industrial trainers with an interest in the development of education and training in the UK.

Part One
Introduction

Chapter 1

Introduction and Overview

John Burke

Three cogent organizing concepts inform this book: ‘Outcomes’, ‘Learning’ and ‘Curriculum’. This collection of papers builds on Jessup (1991) to investigate further the significance of outcomes approaches (and in particular, the Jessup model of Outcomes), to examine more critically the processes of learning, and to relate some of these ideas to the curriculum.

Each of these concepts is briefly discussed (with rather more discussion on the curriculum) before I introduce the substantive focus of each contributor.

Outcomes

The concept of ‘Outcomes’ is not new to education and training; in common with ‘Outputs’ or ‘Attainments’ or ‘Products’, ‘Outcomes’ features in many documents and books¹. Among professional industrial trainers, familiar with Objectives, the term had wide currency² but with a few notable exceptions³ did not figure prominently in academic discourse. What is now ineluctably evident in the perception of many colleagues (but difficult to substantiate or quantify without extensive lexicographical study) is the massively increased salience and prominence of this concept over the past few years in any discussion about further education (FE) and, more recently, higher education (HE). In my view, the single most efficient cause⁴ contributing to this new emphasis was the publication in 1991 of Jessup’s Outcomes: NVQs and the Emerging Model of Education and Training. At the time, I noted in the Preface:

This is an important book. (…) Although this book is a personal statement…its publication marks a subtle but significant shift in emphasis, signalled by the title. The emphasis is on outcomes, the focus on education and training, not, significantly, on vocational education and training. This allows him scope to broach all outcomes (not exclusively ‘competency-based’) and all education and training. A focus on the outcomes of learning is listed as the second fundamental criterion underlying NVQs but Gilbert Jessup sees it as the key concept in the emerging competency-based model because it confers a vital principle of coherence on all the activities which characterize the NVQ approach. (Burke, 1991b, p. vii)

The notion of Outcomes may now be seen as the linchpin of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) and, increasingly, a focus for discussion in HE and the professions.⁵

Learning

All purposive teaching must take place within some kind of curriculum framework, whether this framework is explicit or implicit. However, it is manifest that not all purposive learning takes place within a curriculum. For example, much learning throughout life is serendipitous, based on experience, exploiting learning opportunities when and as they occur. It is a truism that we all know more than we realize. When we organize that learning, it become more purposeful and coherent, it lays bare areas of ignorance which, once recognized, enable us to make-good deficiencies in our understanding, and provides a firmer foundation on which further learning may be built. The value of this sometimes unorganized learning is properly acknowledged within the NVQ approach. The Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) is an obvious example (Simosko, 1990; Jessup, 1990; Newman and Llewellin, 1990). Taking a broad overview, Jessup (1991) notes:

The new approach encourages learning in a wide range of locations and by different methods. By recognising the skills and knowledge people already have, it will raise their confidence and give them a flying start in any new programme they embark upon. The targets of learning will be more relevant and relate more to the needs of individuals. Learning will not be equated in the minds of people with ‘academic’, ‘classrooms’, ‘boredom’ and ‘failure’. (p. 136)

Curriculum

What is the curriculum? It might be assumed this question could be easily answered by any teacher who is enjoined to teach the curriculum, or indeed, by any undergraduate in any discipline who has recently left school. That assumption is unwarranted; any answer is fraught with difficulties. At the nub of the problem is the elasticity of the concept—it means many different things to different people, and the same person may use the word to encompass many meanings. Sometimes, these meanings may be differentiated by a distinguishing epithet, for example, ‘manifest curriculum’, ‘hidden curriculum’, ‘expressive curriculum’, ‘school curriculum’ or, more recently, ‘national curriculum’. In other cases, the defining characteristics may be unclear even to the user, with the concept deployed to cover a raft of meanings ranging from a synonym for ‘syllabus’ (cf Richmond, 1971, p. 11)⁵ to ‘Basically,…what happens to children in school as a result of what teachers do’ (Kansas, 1958).

Taba (1962) observes:

When curriculum is defined as ‘the total effort of the school to bring about desired outcomes in school and out-of-school situations’ (Saylor and Alexander, 1954, p. 3) or ‘a sequence of potential experiences set up in school for the purpose of disciplining children and youth in group ways of thinking and acting’ (B.O.Smith, Stanley, and Shores, 1957, p. 3), the very breadth may make the definition nonfunctional. On the other hand, excluding from the definition of curriculum everything except the statement of objectives and content outlines and relegating anything that has to do with learning and learning experiences to ‘method’ might be too confining to be adequate for a modern curriculum. (p. 9)

Other commentators, for example Lawton et al (1978, pp. 2–4) uncover the assumptions on which notions of the curriculum may be constructed; Lawton distinguishes ‘the child-centred curriculum’, ‘the knowledge-centred curriculum’ and ‘the “needs of society” or “society-centred” kind of curriculum’.

Certainly, before the National Curriculum was devised, for many the notion of curriculum was unproblematic, a happenstance which Goodson (1989) both attests and deplores:

The school curriculum is a social artefact, conceived of, and made for, deliberate human purposes. It is therefore a supreme paradox that in many accounts of schooling, the written curriculum, this most manifest of social constructions, has been treated as a given.

Goodson, above, is careful to delimit his censures to woolly thinking (or the absence of any thinking) about the school curriculum. Many writers make no such distinction; they appear to assume that any mention of ‘curriculum’ implies locus in a school. Indeed, the early reluctance of the NCVQ to engage in curriculum matters may, in part, be due to a kind of ‘halo effect’ that the notion of curriculum carries with it; NVQs had nothing to do with schools, and in their early conception, little to do with schooling.⁶

Becher and McClure (1978) deftly identify the underlying importance of our original question; They insist:

to ask ‘what is the curriculum’ is not simply to imitate the pedantic judge who displays apparent judicial ignorance in order to force counsel to define something everyone knows. The answer which is given stakes the territory to which the curriculum developer lays claim. (p. 11)

The NCVQ and the Curriculum

From its inception in 1986, the NCVQ distanced itself from any concern with the curriculum. This stance was adopted in response to a very deliberate decision to free up vocational qualifications from the welter of regulations and prescriptions which characterized provision at that time; these prescriptions were perceived as a barrier and disincentive to wider access and participation. The revised NVQ Criteria and Procedures, published by the NCVQ in 1989, decreed that National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) should be independent of:

• the mode of learning. This is made possible by the form of an NVQ, which is independent of any education or training programme which may be provided to develop competence;
• upper and lower age limits, except where legal restraints make this necessary. Assessments for the award of NVQs should be open to people of all ages;
• a specified period of time to be spent in education, training or work before the award can be made. NVQs should not proscribe the time taken to acquire competence. This recognizes the considerable variation in the time individuals take to learn, depending on their starting point, learning opportunities, aptitude and motivation.

The focus was very clearly on learning rather than teaching, the needs of the individual learner rather than a class of trainees or students. Indeed, in the same document, the NCVQ goes on in further detail positively to encourage diversity of provision, taking account of individual rates of learning (fast or slow), different forms of assessment to reflect different forms of learning, and the (previously often neglected) requirements of those with special learning needs.

NVQs promoted learning and assessment of learning in the workplace. We have already noticed that the notion of ‘curriculum’, even among the foremost proponents of curriculum theory⁷, was usually linked to the notion of ‘classroom’, ‘school’ or ‘college’, the traditional sites wherein the curriculum was enacted. In the brave liberationist attempt to break new ground, it was tacitly assumed that in a qualification-driven system, with multiple routes to assessment, the imposition of a curriculum framework would be necessarily constricting, inoperable and largely redundant. In practice, as the NVQ framework developed, and as more and more trainees were enrolled, the need for most trainees to locate a significant part of their training in Further Education (FE) colleges or dedicated training establishments became apparent. De facto, fairly fundamental curriculum decisions had to be made. These decisions centred on:

1. the outcomes and objectives to be attained, the aspirations and expectations these involved;
2. the learning and teaching to be accomplished, the methods, activities and experience to be used, the learning and teaching styles which would be appropriate;
3. the content or subject matter, the skills and knowledge to be acquired, how this was to be selected, structured and organized;
4. the appropriate forms of assessment, the place of tests, assignments, the kind of feedback needed and the possible use of profiles and records of achievement;
5. the relationship of each of these concerns to the declared aims and intentions—the philosophy—underlying the notion of NVQs, so that all lecturers or teachers involved, as well as (aspirationally) their students, would share a common understanding of intentions in order to bring about some notion of consistency and coherence.

Beyond these elements, which, following Eraut (1982) and Taba (1962), may be said to constitute the bones of a curriculum, there was the need for managers to obtain resources in the face of legitimate competition from other areas of the college whole curriculum, and to plan the organization and distribution of these resources and all the systems necessary to sustain, monitor and build on this experience.

With the development of General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs), the need to explore the implications for the curriculum has become even more pressing. NVQs and GNVQs share many common characteristics⁸, but there are some significant differences. The most important difference is that whereas NVQs attest competence in the workplace, the award of a GNVQ implies that the student has achieved a foundation of general skills and the knowledge⁹ and understanding which underpin a range of occupations rather than the competence to perform immediately in any particular occupation. The shift to attainment rather than competence opens up a completely new constituency¹⁰, schools and colleges, which had previously been precluded from teaching NVQs because they lacked the facilities or expertise to offer workplaced experience or assessment.

Although in common with NVQs, GNVQs may be awarded to all who meet the required standards, irrespective of time taken and the mode of learning, in practice the vast majority of GNVQ are institutionally based, in either a school or college. In these circumstances, curricular issues are unavoidably a concern of the NCVQ.

Organization of the Book

Contributions are organized into five further sections:

Part Two: The Model Four chapters
Part Three: Curriculum Consequences Seven chapters
Part Three Applications Five chapters
Part Four Progression One chapter
Part Five International Comparison One chapter

The chapters here grouped under four distinct organizing concepts all share many common themes, as outlined in the Preface (qv) but each group has a different broad focus; taken together they illustrate the multifaceted issues which need to be broached in discussing the notion of Outcomes.

Part Two

This section of the book explores the meaning and implications of the Outcomes approach. The argument of each chapter is briefly discussed under each author.

Gilbert Jessup

Gilbert Jessup sets the scene in Chapter 1 by providing a lucid and authoritative overview of recent and ongoing developments. In the first sentence, he cites the rationale underlying the NCVQ Outcomes approach: (In Jessup, 1991) ‘the proposal was made the outcomes model of defining qualifications and learning was applicable to all forms of learning’, before going on briefly to establish the context in which developments are being carried forward. The National Curriculum is now being phased into schools, and although the recent review (Dearing, 1993) will result in a welcomed slimming down of the original plans, the shape of the curriculum for children between the ages of 5 and 14 is largely determined. He views the reshaping of Key Stage 4 (14–16-year-olds), with the introduction of a vocational pathway based on GNVQs, as offering interesting new prospects. ‘A’ and ‘AS’ GCE qualifications are to remain, but 16–19 educational and training provision for the majority of students is being significantly reshaped by the introduction of NVQs and GNVQs. Higher education is also undergoing change, and Jessup anticipates a more flexible and diverse provision in the future (NIACE, 1994). The trend towards modular degrees is likely to continue and he sees this as offering prospects of aligning degree content with professional requirements. Concomitant developments in NVQs and GNVQs at level 4 and above, he says, will also extend the range of provision at higher levels and further impact on higher education. Having established the context and set one of his most compelling themes of integration and coherence, the rest of the chapter proceeds by concisely describing the emerging framework of qualifications, and examining some of the implications for the nature of curriculum and styles of learning. He warns: ‘We shall not be able to achieve a fully integrated system until all forms of learning provision are formulated in a similar manner, namely through the specification of outcomes’ and concludes by spelling out the benefits he sees which would accrue from this approach, concluding with conviction: ‘Perhaps most importantly, it would encourage people to take responsibility for their own learning, both initially and on a continuing basis through their lives’.

John Burke

John Burke continues the discussion by focusing on a raft of theoretical issues which arise from the Outcomes Model. He stresses the importance of close, continuing scrutiny of theoretical concerns because, as he points out, if the theoretical base is flawed, the whole enterprise is in jeopardy. The Outcomes Model is identified as a species of Objectives t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations, Acronyms and Concepts
• Preface
• Foreword
• Part One: Introduction
• Part Two: The Outcomes Model
• Part Three: Curriculum Consequences
• Part Four: Applications of the Outcomes Approach
• Part Five: Issues in Progression
• Part Six: International Comparison
• Notes on Contributors