Interviews with 200 training professionals in Australia suggested that the way competence and standards are constituted in competency-based education is not entirely congruent with employer needs. They could be reconsidered in order to represent the nature of vocational knowledge and characteristics of work. (SK)

Case studies of competency-based training demonstrate the narrowness of a conception of vocational competence that does not include tacit skills and experienced judgment. New approaches to understanding the multilocational, interrelated processes of knowing and doing are needed in order to devise a new definition of competence. (Contains 37…

Competency-based training tends to a control model of curriculum organization. However, although practitioners may use formal processes (standards, modules), they maintain their own professional knowledge and embedded skill. The question remains whose knowledge, standards, and skills are empowered in a competency-based approach to vocational…

Data from eight case studies demonstrate that competency-based training limits possibilities for creation of certain kinds of competence by emphasizing outcomes over processes and innovation. For example, national industry standards suggest that they are the only standards by which work can be done, denying other sources of standards. (Contains 33…

Case vignettes of competency-based training's links with industry depict four cultures of practice emphasizing technique, enterprise, craft, or critique. Multiple concepts of competence and multiple cultures of competence development interact and create tensions that are brokered more or less successfully by vocational education practitioners. (SK)

Drawing on data collected in a national evaluation, this paper explores the contribution of Frontline Management Initiative (FMI) to the practice of management learning in selected enterprises in Australia. (A competence-based management development strategy, FMI places learning in an organization and links management performance to the…

The contribution of competency-based training (CBT) to Australia's vocational education and training (VET) sector was examined through three data collection activities: review of Australian and international literature on VET and CBT; telephone survey of a sample of training managers of 195 companies across Australia; and 8 intensive case studies…