Abstract
Both fostering and measuring action competence remain central targets of vocational education and training research; adequate measurement approaches clearly are prerequisites for international, large-scale assessments. For the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, competence assessments of industrial managers rely mainly on final examinations that attempt to measure not just knowledge but also action competence. To evaluate this test instrument, this article considers two questions: (1) Can the test assess action competence with validity, and (2) how reliable are the corresponding assessment results? The study relied on statistical procedures (e.g., IRT scaling), applied empirically to a sample of 1,768 final examinations. As a result the current examination appears neither adequate nor accurate as an instrument to capture action competence. We conclude that several improving steps have to be undertaken to improve the economic assessment.
Highlights
Both fostering and measuring action competence remain central targets of vocational education and training research; adequate measurement approaches clearly are prerequisites for international, large-scale assessments
Prospects and demand for adequate competence assessments Explicit or implicit measures of vocational competence are relevant to many facets of vocational education and training (VET) and constitute an ever-growing research field
The evaluation of the validity of action competence provided by this article reveals that the assessment entails not the intended, process-oriented structure but rather a fractured, subject-specific, content structure
Summary
Both fostering and measuring action competence remain central targets of vocational education and training research; adequate measurement approaches clearly are prerequisites for international, large-scale assessments. Prospects and demand for adequate competence assessments Explicit or implicit measures of vocational competence are relevant to many facets of vocational education and training (VET) and constitute an ever-growing research field They pertain to national educational factors, such as relevant information and instruments for managing the quality of the vocational educational systems and developing adequate support programs, but increasingly, they appear in international policy agendas. From a political point of view, knowledge about the structure and comparability of competences is required to achieve large-scale assessments of VET, such as across Europe. VET content is heterogeneous between countries and across different professions within nations (Baethge, Arends, & Winther, 2009) and even in specific workplaces (Billett, 2006) This abundant variation creates an ongoing dilemma for constructing generally valid competence tests. Other studies assume dimensionality based on different cognitive processing heuristics, which may determine response behaviors (Nickolaus, 2011; Nickolaus, Gschwendter, & Abele 2009; Nickolaus, Gschwendter, & Geißel 2008; Rosendahl & Straka, 2011; Seeber, 2008; Winther & Achtenhagen, 2009b, 2010)
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