Facilitating learning success and contributing to social inclusion through recognition and self eva

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  Facilitating learning success and
contributing to social inclusion through
recognition and self- evaluation of personal
competenceslessons from UK

• Karen Evans and Natasha Kersh,
• Institute of Education,University of London, UK
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Community Vocational Training Action Programme

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Projects Title "Transnational Methods and
Models for Self-Evaluation of Personal
Competences"

• The study investigates the learning processes of
• adult learners with particular reference to self-
• awareness and self-evaluation of their personal
• competences and tacit skills.
• Self-evaluation means supporting people in
  evaluating
• Their own possible competences. The project aims
  at
• developing new methods of self-evaluation of
  personal
• competences of adult learners on a transnational
  basis.

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Current stage main objectives.

• to analyse the transferability of self-evaluated
  competences in the views of individuals, tutors
  and employers
• to identify dimensions of key competences in
  college and workplace contexts
• to draw on special effects of self-evaluation
  with respect to learners soft outcomes including
  motivation to work and readiness for further
  learning
• to uncover potential effects of experiences with
  self-evaluation methods.

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Our fieldwork aims to investigate the
following issues

• Tutors/learners/employers reactions and
  interpretations of the self-evaluation methods
  and techniques
• Challenges of the practical application of the
  self-evaluation methods in colleges of further
  education
• Relevance of the self-evaluation methods to
  specific courses in adult education.

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Target groups

• Our target groups include learners with
  interrupted occupational or learning careers who
  embark on various courses in colleges of further
  education with the purpose of returning to work
  or learning.
• For such target groups self-evaluation and
  self-recognition of their personal skills and
  competences could be crucial to their learning
  success and learning outcomes.

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Self-evaluation and social inclusion

• Our research indicates that both recognition and
  self-recognition of learners tacit skills may
  facilitate their confidence and involvement, thus
  contributing to the elements of social inclusion
  and social interaction.

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Our group interviews conducted in colleges
of further education indicated that

• Both tutors and students support the view that
  the process of self-evaluation of personal
  competences could facilitate students learning
  success

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As noted by a tutor

• One of the problems that you have with the
  students in our college is that they are
  disadvantaged in one way or another they have
  substantial career interruptions women tend
  to undervalue their personal skill -, they tend
  to think that they their personal skills just
  come and, therefore, they are not worth naturally
  anything. And since most of the motivation for
  coming here is that they looking at improving
  their personal lot, then, obviously it would be
  better if we were more consciously looking at
  those kinds of soft skills during the courses.

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The importance of demonstrating and making the
skills visible has also been emphasized by a
tutor

• Its not only about self-evaluating of their
  skills. Its actually about being able to talk
  about them learners skills and competences in
  terms that make it clear to other people that
  they learners skills and competences are
  valuable.

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Interviews with employers have also shown that
they are ready to recognise the importance
ofthese transferable skills

• They prospective employees need to have
  good communication skills, listening, giving
  feedback, building good relationships with the
  client organisational skills, planning. For
  me its really important the way they can
  act, the way they treat people as well as their
  caring and understanding being tolerant
  being motivated.

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Dimensions of key competences

• methodological competences
• social competences
• competences related to attitudes and values
• learning competences
• content-related (or subject-matter relevant)
  competences.

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Two self-evaluation methods we considered have
been developed and tried in the course of our
fieldwork

• The first approach represents the questionnaire
  method, which attempts to provide students with
  an opportunity to think about their own possible
  skills and competences
• The second approach, the DCA modelling approach,
  explores interrelationships among selected skills
  and competences and encourages learners to
  reflect upon those.

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The questionnaire method attempts to draw
learners attention to the issues of importance,
acquisition and deployment of their skills

• Students are asked to reflect upon the following
  questions and to indicate
• Relative importance of personal skills and
  competences
• Skills they gained in the college course and
• Importance of skills for their success in the
  college course.

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The second approach modelling of individual cases

• The Dynamic Concept Analysis (DCA) method allows
  the analysis of data using conceptual models
  based on information about concept relations in
  adult learning. In this study we use the DCA
  method as a tool to help us as researchers to
  describe and explain a single case.

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• As our next step, we select and define a number
  of competences (concepts), taking into account
  learners/tutors/employers views on what
  personal or tacit skills they considered to be
  the most important within the workplace or
  learning environment

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Anns case
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Summary of findings

• Recognition of learners personal competences by
  others could support them in moving towards
  self-evaluation of their own possible skills and
  competences
• Self-evaluation of personal skills could
  contribte to the elements of social inclusion
• Low skills self-recognition leads to low levels
  of personal confidence and self-esteem.
• This also leads to isolation and loneliness and
  may result in social exclusion.

• Both tutors and students support the view that
  the process of self-evaluation of personal
  competences could facilitate students learning
  success
• Self-evaluation could be facilitated within the
  college setting through various methods embedded
  into coursework
• Modelling of individual learning processes could
  support learners into evaluating their own
  personal skills and competences.