What is Competency-Based Education (CBE)?

An individual presenting in the front of a classroom, foregrounded by students in chairs.

Jayhawk Flex is the name for the University of Kansas' competency-based education (CBE) offerings. There is no universally accepted definition of competency-based education. In A Leader’s Guide to Competency-Based Education (Bushway et al., 2018), the authors acknowledge this lack of agreement: “if you were to ask 10 people to define CBE, you would likely hear 10 different answers.” (p. 2) Despite the variations in how different authors and organizations use the term CBE, the National Survey of Postsecondary Competency-Based Education (Mason, Parsons, & Cap, 2021) lists three observable components common to most expert descriptions:

  1. Curricula are designed around specific competencies.
  2. Advancement focuses on a demonstration of competency.
  3. The times and processes students follow to demonstrate a competency can vary.

To attain the full benefits of CBE, KU’s Center for Certification and Competency-Based Education believes the following expanded set of features are necessary.

  • Articulated Competencies and Learning Outcomes. Courses and programs have clearly articulated competencies (cognitive skills) organized into learning objectives that describe what successful mastery of the competency looks like.
     
  • Authentic and Aligned Assessments. Assessments allow learners to demonstrate mastery of learning objectives in authentic contexts, with rubrics that specify clear criteria for evidence of mastery (or progress toward mastery) aligned to the learning objectives.
     
  • Time and Access to Content. Learners have more flexibility in their program pacing, access to curriculum materials, and assessment opportunities than a traditional semester-based course schedule. 
     
  • Prior Learning. Since competency-based education is most concerned about what students can do, as opposed to seat-time/enrollment in a course with a particular title, efforts should be made to identify progress toward competence among a learner’s lived experiences (e.g., work experience, military service, industry-recognized certifications). This will include the use of pretesting to reduce time and cost.
     
  • Engaged Learning (project-based learning and other high impact practices). For learners to develop, practice, and demonstrate authentic and meaningful competence in their field of study, it is important for the work of learning to go beyond lecturing by taking place in authentic environments, such as field placements, clinicals, internships, apprenticeships, or, especially in the case of undergraduate education where such opportunities might not be as commonly available, simulations of authentic environments.

The focus on this feature set does not mean that there should be a singular approach to Jayhawk Flex and the comptency-based education structures underlying its programs.. For economic and change management reasons, many programs might need or want a more incremental approach. However, given the relative ease of implementing credit-based CBE, and the greater advantages of direct assessment-based CBE, this paper will focus on the latter. 

References: 

Bushway, D., Dodge, L., & Long, C. (2018). A Leader’s Guide to Competency-Based Education. Stylus Publishing, Sterling, Virigina.

Mason, J., Parsons, K., & Cap, Q.N. (2021). State of the Field: Findings from the 2020 National Survey of Postsecondary Competency-Based Education. American institutes of Research.