What are you learning?
Competencies, Standards, and
Outcomes in Online Education
By Melissa Venable
In higher education the race is on not only to develop new ways to measure what you've learned, but
also to determine what specifically you should be learning. While the desire for widely applicable and
agreed upon methods is evident, this may not be realistic. As college and universities, particularly
those online, are asked to provide evidence of
effectiveness, the industry is undergoing new questions
and scrutiny.
Competencies, standards, and learning outcomes are all
ways in which we can describe and determine what a
student should learn in a course or program – how a
student should be different after completion of the
course or program. Let's take a closer look at each of
these concepts and how they impact the delivery of an
online course.
Competencies
A competency can be defined as "an ability or skill." Lists of competencies are sometimes used in
education to describe education goals – the abilities and skills a student should learn in an
educational program – but they also apply, and sometimes originate, in the workplace.
For an example of competencies in a higher education context, take a look at this list of
competencies for online instructors provided by Penn State. You can see how five key competency
areas have been identified (administrative, design, facilitation, evaluation, and technical), each with a
single "primary goal." Each goal is then followed by a list of specific actions that should take place to
demonstrate achievement of each competency – demonstration of the ability to perform the tasks
related with teaching an online course.
Competencies are sometimes used to write job descriptions and to evaluate applicants for their fit
with a job's requirements. Here is a list of leadership and management competencies from New York
State's Department of Civil Service.
Standards
A standard is defined as "something set up and established by an authority as a rule for the measure
of quantity, weights, extent, value, or quality." So, educational standards are often established to
measure the level, amount, or degree of learning achieved in a course or program.
You may already be familiar with standardized tests that are widely used in K-12 education. Testing
systems, like the FCAT in Florida and CST in California, are often used to determine if a student will
advance to the next grade or graduate. These tests have been designed as a way to measure
student learning, and have drawn a lot of fire recently.
Standardized tests are also used in higher education and at professional levels. You may have taken
the ACT or SAT while you were in high school. Nurses must pass the NCLEX-RN, a national
standard exam, before they can receive a RN license and practice nursing. Accountants take
the CPA exam as part of their licensure process. These tests have been designed to measure
whether or not the individual has achieved the standards for performing their jobs, before they are
able to work in their fields.
Standards are also established by professional associations and accrediting bodies to define criteria
for both employment and curriculum development. One example is the National Business Education
Association's list of business education standards for information technology. The National Council
for Accreditation of Teacher Education provides lists of standards for Colleges of Education and uses
these in accreditation evaluations.
Outcomes
Standards and competencies can be used as the basis for writing learning outcomes. An outcome is
"something that follows as a result or consequence," so in an educational context, learning – skills
and knowledge – is the result of a student's completion of a course or program. These outcomes are
the goals of the process.
Individual institutions craft their own lists of learning objectives. You will find these at the program
level (outcomes associated with successful completion of an academic program) and at the course
level (outcomes associated with the successful completion of a course). Course outcomes often link
back to, or map to, program objectives. Capella University makes learning outcomes public
online. Here you can see both program and course level outcomes, organized by degree.
Who determines what you'll learn?
Who are the authorities that set these standards, develop lists of competencies and decide on
specific learning outcomes? There are many parties in this process, and each institution (traditional
and online) may develop its own process using a variety of sources. Possible participants in the
process include: university administrators, faculty members, government guidelines and
requirements, accrediting bodies, parents, students, and potential employers. Getting all of these
groups to agree is no small task. Each has a different perspective on the purpose of higher
education and priorities for the development of learning outcomes.
Beyond the university and accrediting groups, there are other organizations looking for ways to
guide decisions about learning outcomes. Several examples are listed below.
Association of American Colleges and Universities' Liberal Education and America's
Promise campaign has established "essential learning outcomes for liberal education"
including guidelines for assessing the learning of these outcomes with rubrics.
Lumina Foundation is interested in measuring quality and is developing a list of
basic outcomes called The Degree Profile.
Western Cooperative for Educational Technologies has a new grant to look at sources of
student data from six colleges and universities (traditional and online) to consider development
of a single format for reporting and comparison.
Design Implications for Online Education
Writing learning objectives, and mapping them across your courses and programs, is part of the
curriculum development process. This process may include many roles and tasks including
instructional design, web development, evaluation and assessment, and subject matter expertise.
Once learning objectives have been determined, they may impact the sequence of courses in your
program, pre-requisites, and the structure of individual courses.
Learning objectives also help to frame what type of content a course will contain and how you will be
assessed (through assignments and exams.) Some objectives are more challenging to assess
– critical thinking, creativity, and innovation for example. These challenges can become more
complex with the online delivery of a course.
Questions to Consider
As an online student or instructor, the effectiveness of your courses is of primary importance. What
can you do to ensue that your courses have educational impact? Consider the planned outcomes
and ask a few questions:
Are program and course level learning outcomes available for review?
How were the learning outcomes developed? Who determined the outcomes and are they
based on other standards or competencies?
How are the individual outcomes assessed? Can you review examples of assignment
rubrics?
What information is available about student satisfaction – current students, new graduates,
alumni? Do graduates feel that they learned what they needed to learn in preparation for
employment?
There are many issues to be reviewed and discussions to be had before effective learning objectives
can be written and applied to an online course. I hope to cover related issues in the coming weeks
and months. Continue your exploration and research into your learning process and follow the
conversations at your institution and in the higher education industry.