Abstract
Competency frameworks are developed for a variety of purposes, including describing professional practice and informing education and assessment frameworks. Despite the volume of competency frameworks developed in the healthcare professions, guidance remains unclear and is inconsistently adhered to (perhaps in part due to a lack of organizing frameworks), there is variability in methodological choices, inconsistently reported outputs, and a lack of evaluation of frameworks. As such, we proposed the need for improved guidance. In this paper, we outline a six-step model for developing competency frameworks that is designed to address some of these shortcomings. The six-steps comprise [1] identifying purpose, intended uses, scope, and stakeholders; [2] theoretically informed ways of identifying the contexts of complex, “real-world” professional practice, which includes [3] aligned methods and means by which practice can be explored; [4] the identification and specification of competencies required for professional practice, [5] how to report the process and outputs of identifying such competencies, and [6] built-in strategies to continuously evaluate, update and maintain competency framework development processes and outputs. The model synthesizes and organizes existing guidance and literature, and furthers this existing guidance by highlighting the need for a theoretically-informed approach to describing and exploring practice that is appropriate, as well as offering guidance for developers on reporting the development process and outputs, and planning for the ongoing maintenance of frameworks.
Highlights
Competency frameworks are developed for a variety of purposes, including describing professional practice and informing education and assessment frameworks
The existing guidance on competency framework development outlined the need to identify the purpose and intended uses of the framework; the scope of contexts in which it was to be enacted; the methods used in the development process; and the stakeholders involved in the development [9,10,11, 15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]
Based on our understanding of the findings from these sources, we identified a set of underlying principles to inform the development of our six-step model
Summary
Competency frameworks are developed for a variety of purposes, including describing professional practice and informing education and assessment frameworks. There may be uncertainty in the appropriateness of the outputs from the development process—for example, evidence of a previous lack of focus on Developing Competency Frameworks: Six-Step Model non-technical, structural, and teamwork competencies [3,4,5,6,7]. These shortcomings were only reported in the years after the development and implementation of competency frameworks. Systems thinking provides a lens that obligates a consideration of real-world contexts and complexities associated with professional practice, and the components and features required to competently enact such practice
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