| Chapter 2: | Competency Standards Design Methodology |
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In this view it is important they are not confused with means-related processes including curriculum, pedagogy, and organisational and policy issues. Strictly speaking, competency standards should be seen even separately from educational or training outcomes. Standards are stated ends against which learning outcomes might be defined and validated. Standards are, thus, measures against which attempts at implementation may be both assessed and progressively developed.
They, therefore, may be seen as ideals, or focal points, or goals toward which progressive development might be aimed. They may be seen, thus, as transformative goals, focal points for reflection, and the starting point of praxis.
In this context, praxis is a notion that depends upon critical reflection within a context of transformative action that is in turn aimed at producing change in the form of personal growth and development (cf. Clarke, 2002, p. 75). Within this context praxis might be defined and applied within both the Freirean and Aristotelian contexts. Within the Freirean context, the standards may be seen as the “problem posing” element of an approach in which learning is presented as being mutual and related to the development of solutions through a “world-mediated” process (Freire, 1970, chap. 2). Within the Aristotelian context, standards are a point before which there can be no prior knowledge of the right means by which the end might be realised in a particular situation. They are, therefore, a definition of ends at which a process involving rational, intentional, or purposive actions can be directed. They are also, however, definitions that may be altered as they are developed and modified in the continual interplay between ends and means as interpretation, understanding, and application are engaged in “one unified process” (cf. Gadamer, 1979, p. 275, as cited in Smith, 1999). The nature of praxis is, therefore, such that it may cause the specification of an end to be challenged. This will happen as deliberations and attempts related to the means call the validity of a specification or end into question.
Standards as specified, therefore, are not final out of necessity. They must be seen as being in constant development, constantly being renegotiated with the interpersonal or intersubjective space in which they operate.