COMPETENCY CREDIT

COMPETENCY CREDITAuthor(s): Ruth MorrisSource: Canadian Journal of Social Work Education / Revue canadienne d'éducation en servicesocial, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1982), pp. 71-74Published by: Canadian Association for Social Work Education (CASWE)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41669062 .

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EDUCATIONAL NOTES/NOTE PÉDAGOGIQUES

COMPETENCY CREDIT

Ruth Morris Maritime School of Social Work Dalhousie University

Competency Credit, which was introduced at the Maritime School of Social Work in 1979, is the granting ofcollege credits for learning which takes place outside the academic setting. A good example of a candidate for such credit is the homemaker who has brought up a family, done volunteer work, perhaps even attended seminars and workshops of a non-credit nature. Some of the typical homemaking tasks relate very closely to social work skills, as can be seen from this list taken from a book titled How to Get College Credit for What You Have Learned as a Homemaker and Volunteer. 1

• Budgeting; - family, financial planning and management. • Child care; - for infants, toddlers, other pre-schoolers,

elementary school age, teenagers, etc. Includes physical care, planning play activities, teaching games, songs and skills, guiding moral development, etc.

• Communicating with others; - includes writing letters, making phone calls, placing orders for goods and services, etc.

• Home maintenance; - includes diagnosing and correcting household problems such as interior and exterior painting, roofing, wiring, plumbing, building bookshelves and cupboards, etc.1

The two most common kinds of Competency Credit are portfolio and syllabus, a good resource for both being "Portfolio versus Syllabus Methods in Experimental Education" by D. Keith Lupton.2 At the Maritime School a modified Syllabus Method is used. A project syllabus is a formal written syllabus designed to lead the student into writing a formal paper to demonstrate what he/she has learned as it pertains to the subject of the paper and the area within which academic credit is being sought. In the strict syllabus method, students "doing competency" use the same syllabus as that in the course for which credit is being given. At Dalhousie, competency credit requirements are based on the objectives for courses against which credit is given. Evaluation in the syllabus method is done by a single faculty person, whereas in the portfolio method, a committee is used. In the syllabus method the same criteria and skills are used by the evaluating faculty person as would be applied to term or research papers.

Whenever acceptable and traditional methods that have been long

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used by educators can be applied to experimental learning, they establish the greatest possible credibility in the higher education community. The formal paper required in the syllabus methods is the same as traditional term papers. In the syllabus method the student simply writes a scholarly, in-depth and formal paper on the subject area in which credit is desired to demonstrate concretely the quantity and quality of acquired knowledge. The papers test the ability to present the learning in an orderly and organized way. Lupton feels the syllabus method is superior to the portfolio method for these reasons:

Initially since experimental methods are, by definition outside the classroom, and its regime and discipline, they are frequently rejected by traditional educators. . . . The more traditional methods are applied in experimental practices, the more likely it is that they will accept them.3

Competency credit reflects the recent tendency in higher education toward emphasizing the process rather than/ or as well as accumulation of knowledge, which quickly becomes obsolete. Learning how to become a life-long learner is important, due to the rapid obsolescence of knowledge, though it must be stressed that learning should include both a theoretical and a practical understanding of the subject area. One cannot receive college credit for a mere skill.

Prior learning (i.e., learning prior to academic experience) lends itself to measurement and evaluation by criterion-referenced techniques. Presentations must necessarily be at a level of satisfactory undergraduate achievement as defined in other areas of the programme. The learning must both be related to subject areas in the curriculum and be applicable outside the specific context in which it was learned, serving as a base for further learning. The prior learning needs to be relatively current with present day knowledge or basic enough to relate to the programme content against which credit is being given. The experience itself is not credited, but the learning derived from the experience is. Thus, the student must be able to conceptualize and generalize about the experience, and the learning must be worthy of college credit.

In the beginning stages, many technical problems had to be solved, such as the form grading would take in order to fit the needs of the computer. Administration wanted pass/fail, which was attractive for being easier to grade, but this tended not to give the same status to competency credit grades on the transcript. The Registrar's Office was hence persuaded of the need to grade in the same manner as for classes. Furthermore, in establishing regulations and criteria for competency credit, it was decided that some field courses were better suited to than others to the application of competency credit. Briefly, the criteria for a half-credit course read as follows:

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Explore an area of interest in social work. Engage in practical action project in the field of social work whereby the focus is on the analysis of situations from the broadest possible perspective.5

Samples of learning experiences in which the students who applied for competency credit have been involved are:

• setting up an activity centre in a small town hospital, • community development in Africa, and • doing social work on an Indian Reserve. The theoretical underpinning of competency credit is in adult

education. The object of the exercise in the first place was to place value on the learning derived from life and work experience of mature male and female students by giving university credits for it. The method chosen resulted both in a good deal of student contact with the faculty person responsible for the project and in the increasing involvement of female students. Initially, the mature male students all qualified to enter the competency credit process, having the usual variety of work experience. Many of the mature female students, on the other hand, were either ineligible under the requirements originally set up, or else were required to prove their eligibility in an additional exercise not required of the male students. This was due to the fact that many of the women had spent several years of their work experience at home, performing the tasks required of the full-time homemaker/ parent, such as planning, budgeting, and nurturing. In a market economy this is not considered "real work." As word about competency credit spread, many women applied who had some paid or volunteer work experience outside the home, but not the twenty-four months required. Given the thrust within the Maritime School in the BSW Programme, we eventually decided to clarify the competencies document by adding homemaking/ parenting under acceptable tasks. The fact that women should have been required to present "qualitative proof' beyond that required of male applicants was considered systematically discriminatory. We had made a move toward providing one less obstacle in education so that women could move more freely, in order to "develop and contribute to the well-being of all society."6

The number of women students in the new BSW Programme is presently much larger than the number of men, which is quite different from the situation in the MSW classes. The BSW population includes a very great preponderance of mature women who are raising or have raised families and are now seeking to prepare themselves for a return to the world of work or are establishing professional credibility in their present jobs in order to move up in, or out of, the organization. These appear to be the same challenging and self-directed type of students that descended on the universities after World War II. The only difference is

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that this time the students are female rather than male. It behoves us as social work educators to consider the many social needs of this growing population of students. Competency credit, which equalizes the differing working experiences of men and women, is one way to improve opportunities. On the other hand, competency credit has only opened the door. Programmes are also needed which are coordinated with financial assistance and child care. More access to information about new approaches to learning opportunities and new admissions possibilities is also required. Universities tend to give lip service to such innovations rather than advertising them. In trying to rectify the situation for women students in the area of competency credit, we have made some important breaks from tradition.

Notes

1 Ruth B. Ekstrom, Abigail M. Harris and Marlaine E. Lockheed, How to Get College Credit for What You Have Learned as a Homemaker and Volunteer (Princeton, 1977).

2 D. Keith Lupton, " Portfolio versus Syllabus Methods in Experimental Education" Alternative Higher Education (Winter, 1979).

* Ibid., pp. 24, 125. 4 Ibid., p. 125. 5 MSW Brochure, Maritime School of Social Work. 6 Address by Dr. Margaret Fulton, President, Mount Saint Vincent University,

Halifax.

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COMPETENCY CREDIT