Let’s get some of the easier stuff out of the way to start with. The difference between a “competence” and a “competence concept” is that a competence *is* something that a person has, a personal quality; while the concept is the *idea* that you or I might have to formulate the definition of what it is that people have. Having said that, I have probably sometimes glossed over the difference.

Your “bacon and eggs” example works fine, as far as I can see. Frying bacon and eggs is a rankable concept, as that imprecise way of formulating it means that it is open to people doing it better or less well. And I think your levels are reasonable, too. The point about levels is that each individual level definition is a competence concept in its own right. For example, your level 2: “Can cook the eggs so the yolk is runny and the white is firm, the bacon so it’s just nice and crispy” is a nicely defined binary concept. Taken out of context, that is a serviceable definition of a competence, that could conceivably appear in a cookery occupational standard. It is a level just in the context of the rankable concept of “fry bacon and eggs”.

Perhaps we are in violent agreement I’m not saying that a level is a way of doing things – put that way it wouldn’t make any sense to me – but that relating rankable concepts to related binary concepts is done by defining levels. Defining levels is a way of carving out binary concepts from a rankable concept. All the common examples of level that I can currently think of do just that: their context is a rankable concept, and each level is a binary concept. I wonder if you meant “ranked” rather than “rankable” in your reply to proposal 1? Each level definition is a binary, *ranked* (no longer rankable) concept.

In the end, different people “like” to define things in different ways, to fit in with their own way of seeing related things. I suggest that we should be working towards definitions that are tolerable for everyone, rather than ones that are liked by favoured people and not by others. Of course, where people “like” definitions that work effectively for the greatest number of people, then let’s go with what those people like!

Thus, my followup to proposal 2 is to say that, as far as I can see at present, “framework” is a word that is very often used in connection with a scheme defining levels. EQF, NQF, QCF, SCQF, etc. etc. That’s the main reason I use the term. I would be equally happy with the term “level scheme”.

So I’m glad you appreciate most of my proposals, and I think the other ones will not be difficult to iron out – or hammer out? – agreement about.

I claim a competence ‘frying bacon and eggs’. My competence could be assessed ‘binarily': I can fry bacon and eggs and end up with an edible product (or burn the bacon, have the eggs only partially cooked and so on). Alternatively, this competence could be assessed ‘rankably': Level1 – I can cook the basic bacon and egg fry-up; Level2 I can cook the eggs so the yolk is runny and the white is firm, the bacon so it’s just nice and crispy; Level3 I can cook bacon and eggs in any desired way to meet the wishes of the consumer.

Here I’ve tried to capture the *qualitative* nature of ‘level’. I’m doing the same activity, but if I’m assessed as at Level3, then I’m better at it.

What I have resisted doing here is mentioning any ability to cook scrambled or poached eggs, or (heaven forbid) black pudding. If I did that, I might have a different competence, not just a change in level, because I have added new abilities.

I might alternatively define a competence ‘cook a full English breakfast’. In respect of this competence, I might only have the capability to cook bacon and eggs, but I might know about the rest of a full English and even have a theoretical knowledge of how to cook black pudding. So for this competence, Level1 might be successfully achieved in parts, some actual cooking ability, some knowledge; Level2 might include black pudding, fried bread and mushrooms; Level3 might be assessed as the ability to cook all the ingredients of the full English, and higher levels might have greater and greater qualitative improvements.

I think that this idea of ‘level’ is fundamentally different from a competence or ability, or at least it can be approached as fundamentally different. It is about how well or how badly you can do something, not simply an ability to do something.

I notice that you’ve used the word ‘concept’ or alternatively ‘competence concept’ many times in the article, when I think you mean competence. I’m not sure this is helpful!

What I’m getting at here is that I’m a bit unhappy with any confusion between the meanings of level and competence. I see ‘level’ as a bit like a facet in a thesaurus. It’s a different thing from a competence itself, and it might apply across groups of competencies. A level system is an hierarchical encoding scheme, classification system or ordered list of quality-based, assessable attributes that could be applied to one or more abilities or competencies.

Referring to Simon’s proposals:

1. I see ‘levels’ as the rankable assessable concepts, not a way of relating binaries to rankables.

2. I’m also not sure I like the use of the term ‘framework’ in relation to levels (although I recognise that it *is* used commonly). The problem is that ‘framework’ is also used for a collection of competencies, so there’s a potential muddle of terminology.

3. Skip that one, as I don’t really understand that!

4. This one I don’t like, because I don’t think a level should be represented as a competence. If a level is to be represented as a competence, then we can just relate the two (or more) competences and scrap the term ‘level’.

5 – 7 are really mechanisms for identifying and defining levels, so I have no problem with those.

Finally it’s worth noting that levels may have multiple uses, not just in relation to competences, but also courses, qualifications, awards, prizes, and so on, as Simon has hinted. I don’t think that the use of vocabularies of levels should be any different in the competency domain from any other domain.

Would it were that easy. You know – we know better, we can do a better job… but as you know the problem will always be building consensus. On the other hand, if you have a big popular system (and it would be nice to think that you may well have soon) I guess you can impose a “consensus” by fiat, so to speak (as MS and other near monopolists tend to do).

Better make it a good new set of generic levels, that I agree with!

For what it’s worth, I entirely agree that the most important aspect of effective generic levels is agreement. However, while I concede that using established EU frameworks seems sensible to this end, I fear that the current EQF levels may be too complicated to be accepted/used beyond the education community. Distinguishing between levels often seems quite tricky. For example:

Knowledge – Level 5
• comprehensive, specialised, factual and theoretical knowledge within a field of work or study and an awareness of the boundaries of that knowledge

Knowledge – Level 6
• advanced knowledge of a field of work or study, involving a critical understanding of theories and principles

As a compromise, could a new set of levels be developed but, as well as being written to be more intuitive, be designed to map more easily to existing frameworks (such as the EQF) as well?

Your generic levels are the kind of thing that people seem to have a go at from time to time. If we are to have generic levels, it seems most important to have as wide agreement as possible. Now I’m not saying they’re perfect, but the EQF competence levels are at least enshrined as EU documents. You know the 8 levels there (see e.g. the PDF at http://ec.europa.eu/education/pub/pdf/general/eqf/leaflet_en.pdf ), though they refer to “work or study” and not just work.

Examples of particular skills that belong to topic area levels seem to me to be very helpful, and to belong in a long or full human-oriented description. Maybe the O*Net style of things is similar, though of course the effectiveness of examples depends on people’s familiarity with them.

Looking forward from the O*Net position, I could imagine many small tasks being rated on the O*Net scales — if this were done, any number of them could be presented to a user as examples of what is meant by that point on the scale. An intelligent tool would present examples most likely to be meaningful to that user. Thus, constructing a tool like this would need (a) generic level definitions, and (b) many level assignments. Looks like a good long-term strategy.

A few questions/reflections:

The generic levels concept does apply very well to languages although is it perhaps limited by how many other domains it would work in? That said, could another key area be computer system proficiency? For example:

Level 1 – Can perform some common operations without supervision
Level 2 – Can perform all common operations without supervision
Level 3 – Can perform all common and some advanced operations without supervision
And so on…

As an extension of this, could the generic level descriptions also be anchored for specific systems with specific examples? (E.g., for the MS Excel – level 3 – ‘Create a pivot table’)

My final related point is regarding O*Net. I don’t know whether you’re aware but the way that they measure occupational differences is by using questionnaires in the opposite way.

http://www.onetcenter.org/questionnaires.html

In other words, they use specific “real life” activities equated to a specific level in order to help workers objectively rate their own jobs. Is this a style of level label/descriptor you had in mind for your model too?