Process Of Competence Development Research Articles

The role of a linguistic club in the foreign language communicative competency development

The article deals with the process of foreign language communicative competency development at a technical university within the work of the linguistic club "Intelligent" of Lenin Ivanovo State Power Engineering University. The pedagogic conditions and methodological principles are explained. It is proved that the structure and variation of the linguistic club activities promotes development of the key components of foreign language communicative competency: linguistic, verbal, sociolinguistic, sociocultural, strategic, discursive competences. It is concluded that the linguistic club is an important component of teaching a foreign language at a technical university as it gives the opportunity for improvement for students of different levels, contributes to students' raising foreign language learning motivation and creative potential realisation. During the preparation for the events students' professional and personal competences are also developed.

Profesijos mokytojų pedagoginės ir profesinės kompetencijų ugdymo įtaka karjerai

The professionalism of vocational education and training (VET) teachers and the related career and competence development processes of VET teachers face many challenges related to institutionalization and reforms in the VET system of Lithuanian schools. Despite these challenges and problems, many VET teachers are aware of the meaning and importance of their work. The aim of the article is to present the results of the research on the needs of VET teachers in terms of content, learning and competence assessment, and to provide insights into how VET teachers construct their careers by developing pedagogical and professional competencies. The study involved 324 VET teachers from 10 VET centers (2 VET centers in larger cities, 2 VET centers in regional centers and 6 VET centers in rural areas. Age range: 38% aged 41–50, 35% over 51 years, 21% were between the ages of 31–40 and 6% were between the ages of 21 and 30. The study used structural equation modeling. Data were evaluated using the WLSMV tool Software: Mplus Version 8.3. The results of the research will allow the development of an online self-assessment tool that will allow vocational teachers to self-evaluate their professional and pedagogical competences and to plan their professional career development.

Promoting Self-Responsibility: Learning from Australian Maritime Engineering Student and Alumni in Developing Employability Competencies

The concept of Global Maritime Fulcrum has changed the national strategy to redevelop Indonesian maritime power, including the strategy of Indonesian Higher Education Institutions in preparing their graduates to enter the labour market. Learners as the centre of the competency development process should proactively take self-responsibility (SR) by participating in competency-enhancing activities to possess not only technical skills but also competencies related to knowledge, attitudes and non-technical skills. The purpose of this paper was to describe the concept of self-responsibility from the perspective of student and alumni of Australian Maritime Engineering Schools in their process to develop employability competency. Data were collected from 1056 participants through a web-based self-report questionnaire. The quantitative analyses have suggested that the participants highly appreciated the importance of SR. By internalized their extrinsic motivations into positive behaviours, students with a high level of SR tend to an effective capacity for managing their personal competency development. In addition, a self-responsible learner also has developed self-awareness of his/her contribution to the development process. Therefore, the SR practice that appears to be best developed in development environments that could help learners to possess a series of competencies that they will confront in their real-life situation. This study has the potential to enrich the development of maritime engineering education in Indonesia by suggesting that Indonesian students need to modify their cognitive structure and develop the capability to reconstruct their development environment.

Using Work Integrated Learning programmes as a strategy to broaden academic and workplace competencies

Orientation: Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is often hailed for leveraging students’ swift and flexible adaptation to organisational work demands and accentuating the relevance of knowledge acquired in academic environments to work contexts. However, an inclusive view of WIL’s impact on students’ academic life, especially the broadening of their academic competences, is often occluded by a selective approach to WIL, which emphasises employers’ professional expectations and ignores the nature and process of competence development of students.Research purpose: To bridge the research gap created by employer-centred approaches, this study explores particular South African University of Technology (UoT) ‘students’ perceptions’ on the influence of WIL programmes on the broadening of Office Management and Technology (OMT) competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills and abilities).Motivation for the study: To promote an alternative approach to unravelling OMT competencies, which takes cognisance of the perceptions of students, who are the actual participants in WIL.Research design, approach and method: The study drew on a quantitative case study of 94 OMT students from the UoT’s two campuses who had been successfully placed at 20 organisations in South Africa.Main findings: The findings demonstrated that students’ participation in WIL enhanced their practical knowledge of space management, encouraged swift learning of work-based skills and abilities as well as facilitated the transfer of these competencies across a wide range of contexts, activities and tasks.Practical and managerial implications: The strong correlation between course organisation and WIL’s enhancement of space management knowledge, skills and abilities implies that educators and employers need to place more emphasis not just on their delivery methods but also on the selection and organisation of content, which is critical to such delivery.Recommendations: The study recommended the strengthening of the entire WIL conceptualisation and implementation process (i.e. content selection, content organisation, teaching modalities and computer-assisted delivery) and its delivery regime to ensure sustained improvement of student competencies.

Developing Problem-Solving Competency for Students in Teaching Biology at High School in Vietnam

Accessing to the general trend of the world, Vietnam is in the process of setting up a new General education curriculum oriented to learner competency development. In that curriculum, problem-solving is one of the common competencies that need to be formed and developed for students. Thus, developing and evaluating problem solving competency is one of the tasks that teachers in disciplines at all levels of learning and need to do. However, in in Vietnam nowadays, teaching of competency approach is still difficult for teachers. In this article, on the basis of research on competency, we have given a problem-solving competency development process in teaching biology at high school as an illustrative example.

Entry-to-practice public health nursing competencies: A Delphi method and knowledge translation strategy

BackgroundSustaining and strengthening nurses ‘contributions to public and population health in the 21st century depends in part on nursing education. Clearly articulated entry-to-practice competencies will contribute to the capacity of undergraduate nursing education programs to prepare graduates to promote local, national and global population health. ObjectivesThe Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing created the Public Health Task Force to develop consensus on core, national entry-to-practice competencies in public health nursing for undergraduate nursing students and to support these competencies with corresponding online teaching strategies. DesignDelphi approach. ParticipantsNurses with public health experience in education and practice, and representatives from other public health professional organizations across Canada. MethodThe three-phased competency development included: 1) an environmental scan; 2) an iterative process to draft competencies; and 3) a modified Delphi process to confirm the final competency framework using face to face consultations and a survey. The knowledge translation strategy involved soliciting submissions of teaching strategies for peer-review and subsequent inclusion in an interactive online resource. Results242 public health educators and practitioners participated in the consensus consultation. The final document outlined five competency statements with 19 accompanying indicators. A total of 123 teaching strategies were submitted for the online resource, of which 50 were accepted as exemplary teaching strategies. ConclusionThis competency development process can provide guidance for the development of competencies in other countries, thus strengthening public health nursing education globally. The decision to intentionally level the competencies to entry-to-practice, as opposed to an advanced level, enhanced their application to undergraduate nursing education. The development of the additional inventory of teaching strategies created a sustainable innovative resource for public health nursing educators and practitioners world-wide to support the adoption of entry-to-practice public health nursing competencies.

Competent Development: Fieldwork for Culturally Diverse Students

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32444/IJSW.2018.79.1.55-64 The present article is an attempt to understand the process of competency development through fieldwork training, challenges experienced and skills acquired by foreign students to practice social work in a culturally different society. In-depth interviews were conducted with two students, their fieldwork supervisors, co-workers and other stakeholders regarding fieldwork. The findings have been analysed in relation to issues related to fieldwork, efforts made by students for overcoming the challenges, acquisition of skills for effective practice in a cross-cultural setting during the fieldwork .

Development and validation of health service management competencies

PurposeThe importance of managerial competencies in monitoring and improving the performance of organisational leaders and managers is well accepted. Different processes have been used to identify and develop competency frameworks or models for healthcare managers around the world to meet different contextual needs. The purpose of the paper is to introduce a validated process in management competency identification and development applied in Australia – a process leading to a management competency framework with associated behavioural items that can be used to measure core management competencies of health service managers.Design/methodology/approachThe management competency framework development study incorporated both qualitative and quantitative methods, implemented in four stages, including job description analysis, focus group discussions and online surveys.FindingsThe study confirmed that the four-stage process could identify management competencies and the framework developed is considered reliable and valid for developing a management competency assessment tool that can measure management competence amongst managers in health organisations. In addition, supervisors of health service managers could use the framework to distinguish perceived superior and average performers among managers in health organisations.Practical implicationsDeveloping the core competencies of health service managers is important for management performance improvement and talent management. The six core management competencies identified can be used to guide the design professional development activities for health service managers.Originality/valueThe validated management competency identification and development process can be applied in other countries and different industrial contexts to identify core management competency requirements.

Requirements for designing a cyber-physical system for competence development

The increasing demand for individual products and shorter product life cycles leads to changing requirements concerning skills and competences of workers. Competence development during value adding processes becomes a key success criterion. In the future, new methods and procedures for education and advanced training of workers will be needed in order to handle the increasing complexity of individualized and personalized products economically. New systems for the competence development during the value adding process are required in order to achieve an economical production of individual products in an assembly system. The technology enablers for the competence development will be new communication technologies. These technologies lead to cyber-physical systems for competence development, which support the workers and enable them to produce products economically at lot size 1. For an optimal design of these systems the competence development process and the competence measurement need to be included. Competence development, competence measurement and cyber-physical systems are therefore directly linked to each other and depend on each other. For designing a cyber-physical system for competence development of assembly workers in an assembly system, these interconnections will be illustrated in order to enable an economically well-founded view.

A mentoring programme based on competency development at a Spanish university: an action research study

ABSTRACTThis article describes an action research (AR) project for designing and implementing a structured mentoring programme in a Spanish university. A student affairs unit, a team of researchers, faculty-mentors and student-protégés worked together on three cycles of AR. The result is a programmatic mentoring programme for the development of non-technical personal and professional competencies for undergraduate students. This paper describes the original situation that sparked the project, the iterative process followed, the tools and guides developed and the final programme designed. In addition to the increase in the level of satisfaction perceived by the entire university, the paper outlines the five critical factors that emerged from the AR project: the competency development process, programme value added, trust between mentors and protégés, the prominence of the student-protégé in the improvement plans and the continuous improvement culture generated.

Understanding posttraumatic growth of paratriathletes with acquired disability

Purpose: To examine the relevance of key components of Organismic Valuing Theory of Growth through Adversity in understanding posttraumatic growth amongst paratriathletes with acquired disability.Methods: Semi-structured interviews informed by organismic valuing theory of growth through adversity were conducted with 14 elite paratriathletes (eight male, six female). To increase the likelihood that participants had experienced posttraumatic growth, a short form of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory was completed prior to interview participation. Interview data were analyzed using directed content analysis.Results: Although the initial response to disability was largely negative, paratriathlon experiences were reported to be a mechanism through which growth was facilitated. In particular, participants suggested that social, competence, empowerment, and identity development processes were instrumental in facilitating posttraumatic growth.Conclusions: Analysis identified themes largely consistent with the main tenets of organismic valuing theory of growth through adversity, supporting its utility in understanding response to a traumatic event and subsequent growth. These findings also suggest that para sport may be an efficacious means for promoting posttraumatic growth, especially for individuals with severe initial reactions to their disability. Lastly, findings suggest that fostering perceptions of competence, autonomy, and social connection may promote posttraumatic growth.Implications for RehabilitationAcquiring a physical disability may have a detrimental impact on the satisfaction of an individual’s fundamental psychological needs.In order to foster posttraumatic growth, the para sport environment should allow for participants to feel competent, autonomous, and to have meaningful interactions with fellow athletes and coaches.Para sport may be particularly beneficial for individuals with previous sporting backgrounds and for those with severe initial reactions to their disability.

PSYCHOLINGUISTIC PECULIARITIES OF FORMING STUDENTS GRAMMAR COMPETENCE IN TEACHING ENGLISH AFTER GERMAN

The article focuses on psycholinguistic aspects of forming and developing grammar competence in the process of teaching English as a second non-native language for students, native speakers of Ukrainian, majoring in German. The aim of the investigation is to analyze the psychological and linguistic factors that determine the process of second foreign language acquisition and grammar competence development under the conditions of artificial subordinate trilingualism. The analysis of psycholinguistic studies in the field of second and third language acquisition has been carried out. The concern of our investigation is the process of cross-linguistic influence of Ukrainian, German and English. A general overview of scientific approaches to understanding the models of multilingual interaction has been provided. The problem of dominant language in the process of acquiring another foreign language has been studied. The current research has suggested that the process of acquisition of the second non-native language is predominantly influenced by the first non-native language. It has been determined that cross-linguistic influence results in the phenomena of interference and transfer. Interference is regarded as a negative phenomenon resulting in production of mistakes by students and hindering the process of forming English grammar competence. Transfer is looked upon as a positive phenomenon that facilitates the development of grammar competence in one language on the basis of another. The processes of grammatical interference and transfer in the areas of morphology and syntax have been examined. The issues of preventing the negative influence of interference and facilitating the positive effects of transfer have been explored. Our survey has put forward for consideration the necessity to develop students linguistic awareness and ability to enhance the positive transfer effects. The educational background facilitates reducing the negative effect of interference as well. For this reason, the students knowledge acquired in one foreign language should be used to minimize the negative transfer while learning another foreign language. It is important to take into account typological closeness of English and German in order to increase students proficiency and awareness of similar and different aspects peculiar to morphology and syntax of English and German.

Sexual Health Competencies for Undergraduate Medical Education in North America

IntroductionThe number of hours spent teaching sexual health content and skills in medical education continues to decrease despite the increase in sexual health issues faced by patients across the lifespan. In 2012 and 2014, experts across sexuality disciplines convened for the Summits on Medical School Education and Sexual Health to strategize and recommend approaches to improve sexual health education in medical education systems and practice settings. One of the summit recommendations was to develop sexual health competencies that could be implemented in undergraduate medical education curricula. AimTo discuss the process of developing sexual health competencies for undergraduate medical education in North America and present the resulting competencies. MethodsFrom 2014 to 2016, a summit multidisciplinary subcommittee met through face-to-face, phone conference, and email meetings to review prior competency-based guidelines and then draft and vet general sexual health competencies for integration into undergraduate medical school curricula. The process built off the Association of American Medical Colleges' competency development process for training medical students to care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming patients and individuals born with differences of sex development. Main Outcome MeasuresThis report presents the final 20 sexual health competencies and 34 qualifiers aligned with the 8 overall domains of competence. ResultsDevelopment of a comprehensive set of sexual health competencies is a necessary first step in standardizing learning expectations for medical students upon completion of undergraduate training. ConclusionsIt is hoped that these competencies will guide the development of sexual health curricula and assessment tools that can be shared across medical schools to ensure that all medical school graduates will be adequately trained and comfortable addressing the different sexual health concerns presented by patients across the lifespan. Bayer CR, Eckstrand KL, Knudson G, et al. Sexual Health Competencies for Undergraduate Medical Education in North America. J Sex Med 2017;14:535–540.

Competence Models as a Tool for Conceptualizing the Systematic Process of Entrepreneurship Competence Development

Entrepreneurship Education (EE) is believed to be an important key to supporting learners to become entrepreneurial, which means it needs to be approached systematically. Competence models provide a platform to meaningfully embed varying interpretations, learning outcomes, and roles of EE and allow educators and other stakeholders to apply EE systematically throughout all education levels. The aim of this study was to understand how systematic entrepreneurship competence development throughout the education levels is conceptualized in different EE competence models. In other words, what are the critical aspects to consider while constructing systematic competence models for EE purposes? The results of the analysis of the competence models help educators, school boards, policymakers, local municipalities, researchers, and other relevant stakeholders to obtain a clearer understanding of how EE learning outcomes can be systematically achieved at all education levels. However, lacking empirical proof regarding the impact of the models’ application, these models represent the “optimal set” of expected competencies for specific education levels and types. In its original form, a competence model established for a specific education system is unlikely to fit the needs and aims of other education systems. Thus, it is recommended that any model be adapted to a specific need and with a focus on learning outcomes.

Features of a competency approach to the university education content implementation

The following paper deals with the reasons for the reorganization of the educational system, as well as the reasons for updating the content of education and technology. The author describes the goals of modern education, the problems of future teacher training, the problems of the Russian education system modernization, requirements for graduates of higher education institutions, the reasons of the transition from the knowledge and skills to competences, the content of the competence concept with respect to educational activities, the problems of professional competence development at graduates whose major is Teacher Education, the process of future teacher professional competence development. The author states that the competence approach implementation will affect the quality of education. The paper also deals with the problem of raising the level of future teacher professional competence. Crucial competencies are described. The paper contains the definition of professional competence, focusing on the professional competence of the teacher, the definition of value-semantic competence, general cultural competence, educational and cognitive competence, informational competence, communicative competence. The article analyzes the problems of competence-based approach implementation in the educational system, as well as the necessity of educational activities content change in higher education institutions.

Developing a Provincial Cancer Patient Navigation Program Utilizing a Quality Improvement Approach. Part Three: Evaluation and Outcomes.

In 2012, the provincial cancer agency in Alberta initiated a provincial quality improvement (QI) project to develop, implement, and evaluate a provincial Cancer Patient Navigation (CPN) program spanning 15 sites across over 600,000 square kilometres. This project was selected for two years of funding (April 2012-March 2014) by the Alberta Cancer Foundation (ACF) through an Enhanced Care Grant process (ACF, 2015). A series of articles has been created to capture the essence of this quality improvement (QI) project, the processes that were undertaken, the standards developed, the education framework that guided the orientation of new navigator staff, and the outcomes that were measured. The first article in this series focused on establishing the knowledge base that guided the development of this provincial navigation program and described the methodology undertaken to implement the program across 15 rural and isolated urban cancer care delivery sites. The second article delved into the education framework that was developed to guide the competency development and orientation process for the registered nurses who were hired into cancer patient navigator roles and how this framework evolved to support navigators from novices to experts. This third and final article explores the evaluation approach used and outcomes achieved through this QI project, culminating with a discussion section, which highlights key learnings, and subsequent steps that have been taken to broaden the scope and impact of the provincial navigation program.

Cultural displacement as a lever to global-ready student profiles: results from a longitudinal study on International Lifelong Learning Programs (LLP)

This article presents a study on the development of intercultural competences in students involved in international education, namely two LLP intensive programs (IPs). The data shows the extent to which, according to European Higher Education Area priorities, an educational model based on mobility abroad may foster competence development, and casts light on the importance of the socio-cultural experience of displacement—envisaged by the IP educational formula—in creating student profiles fitting for a global society. The starting point is a longitudinal study conducted over a 6-year time-span on 196 students who attended two consecutive lifelong learning IPs involving eleven Universities from eight European Countries. The two IPs set up an innovative interdisciplinary learning model aimed at developing intercultural competences in undergraduate students attending different degree courses. The study, based on questionnaires submitted to the participants at the end of each IP edition, worked out a pattern of indicators modelling intercultural competence as a multidimensional and developmental process especially associated with factors ascribable to the social dimension of learning. The emerging factorial pattern shows the social infra-structure of mobile students’ intercultural competence as a process in which mobility works as a crucial external factor influencing the process of competence development. Mobility does not act either directly or alone, but is connected to the appreciation of Web 2.0 as a learning tool and the relevance attributed to informal and experiential learning, all of which are aspects concerning the social dimension of the educational pathway.

Developing a provincial cancer patient navigation program utilizing a quality improvement approach Part two: Developing a Navigation Education Framework.

In 2012, the provincial cancer agency in Alberta initiated a provincial quality improvement project to develop, implement, and evaluate a provincial cancer navigation program spanning 15 sites across more than 600,000 square kilometres. This project was selected for two years of funding (April 2012-March 2014) by the Alberta Cancer Foundation (ACF) through an Enhanced Care Grant process (ACF, 2015). A series of articles has been created to capture the essence of this quality improvement (QI) project, the processes that were undertaken, the standards developed, the education framework that guided the orientation of new navigator staff, and the outcomes that were measured. The first article in this series focused on establishing the knowledge base that guided the development of this provincial navigation program and described the methodology undertaken to implement the program across 15 rural and isolated urban cancer care delivery sites (Anderson et al., 2016). This article, the second in the series, delves into the education framework that was developed to guide the competency development and orientation process for the registered nurses who were hired into cancer patient navigator roles and how this framework has evolved to support navigators, as they move from novice to expert practice. The third and final article will explore the outcomes that were achieved through this quality improvement project culminating with a discussion section highlighting key learnings, adaptations made, and next steps underway to broaden the scope and impact of the provincial navigation program.

Developing a provincial cancer patient navigation program utilizing a quality improvement approach Part one: Designing and implementing.

In 2012, the provincial cancer agency in Alberta initiated a provincial quality improvement project to develop, implement, and evaluate a provincial navigation program spanning 15 sites across over 600,000 square kilometres. This project was selected for two years of funding (April, 2012-March 31, 2014) by the Alberta Cancer Foundation (ACF) through an Enhanced Care Grant process. A series of articles has been created to capture the essence of this quality improvement project, the processes that were undertaken, the standards developed, the educational framework that guided the orientation of new navigator staff, and the outcomes that were measured. This first article in the series focuses on establishing the knowledge base that guided the development of this provincial navigation program and describing the methodology undertaken to implement the program across 15 rural and isolated urban cancer care delivery sites. The second article in this series will delve into the educational framework that was developed to guide the competency development and orientation process for the registered nurses who were hired into the newly developed cancer patient navigator roles. The third and final article will explore the outcomes that were achieved through this quality improvement project culminating with a discussion section highlighting key learnings, adaptations made, and next steps underway to broaden the scope and impact of the provincial navigation program.

Russian practice of English language teaching in e-learning management system in universities of economics (MESI and PRUOE)

The article deals with topical issues of the using distance learning technologies, and blended model of studying foreign languages in universities. The authors investigated the possibility of distance learning technologies in the modern linguistic education. The practical side of blended model of foreign languages teaching is shown on the example of Learning Management System “Virtual Campus” at Plekhanov Russian University of economics and Moscow state university of economics, statistics and informatics. The purpose of the research is the following : 1) to analyze advantages of virtual campus in the Russian education system in teaching foreign languages in universities; 2) to demonstrate the difference between distance and e-learning in teaching foreign languages; 3) to demonstrate what language and speech competencies are developed with an electronic campus; 4) to describe the virtual campus tools; 5) to conduct a pedagogical experiment demonstrating virtual campus opportunities in teaching foreign languages; 6) to prove an innovative character and productivity of a blended learning model in teaching foreign languages. Material of the research. As a material of the research were used the following: 1) records of the lessons in the virtual campus (forums, tests, written tasks, commentaries); 2) paper and electronic text books; 3) students’ and teachers’ polls; 4) the results of students’ testing. Methods of the research. During the experiment the following methods were applied: descriptive, project, comparative and statistic methods. The results of the research. The following results have been obtained during the experiment - an innovation character and the productivity of a blended model usage in teaching foreign languages in universities which can be demonstrated in the following have been proved: 1) in developing communicative and language competencies; 2) in developing an individual student trajectory; 3) in expanding active and passive student vocabulary; 4) in expanding a socio-cultural potential at the lesson; 5) in developing an intellectual potential at the lesson; 6) in the intensification of educational process. Conclusions . 1. The usage of a blended learning project system based on а virtual campus raises the process of competencies development to a new level: 1) speech competencies (fi rst of all reading and writing); 2) language competencies (lexical and grammar); 3) cognitive с competencies. 2. We recommend a new blended learning system on the basis of a virtual campus in teaching foreign languages should be put into practice in education domain in Russian universities. 3. The usage of a blended learning system on the basis of a virtual campus in teaching foreign languages implies a change in a managerial approach in teachers’ activities. 4. The usage of a blended learning system in teaching foreign languages is feasible within a framework of a system approach in the education process.