Is assessment of capability enough?

In a conversation with a colleague (a few weeks ago as I write this), I had a thought. She’s contemplating an evaluation book, and I was talking about evaluating competencies. It occurred to me that there may be more than just the ability needed. Which leads me to ask, is assessment of capability enough?

So, we should be looking at competencies. Ideally, we’re stepping away from norm-referenced assessment, that is comparing to others. We should have an absolute criteria which says that they now can do this. For instance, Mager-style objectives: what they need to be able to do, in what context, and to what level of capability. This is part of the shift away from roles, since orgs break up tasks differently. That is, some orgs have folks who do analysis separate from those who do design, and those who develop. Others have people do the whole thing go to whoa.

However, is competency enough? That was the question that occurred to me. I was thinking that maybe the only thing that really mattered was that they felt confident enough to give it a go after the learning experience. That is, folks have to feel like they are ready to give it a go.

I realized, thinking more about it, that it’s not just confident. Taking Dunning-Kruger into account, we don’t want folks who are confident but aren’t really ready. That’s not a recipe for success!  So…I am thinking that it’s willing and able! So, you probably need to indicate readiness to give it a go as well as the competence. So how do we assess that? We can ask, but folks might say they’re ready, but they’re not. I’m wondering if them actually having a plan for how and when they’ll apply makes sense. As a complement to a skill demonstration as well.

I’m not fully convinced, but I do believe that just competence isn’t enough. Folks may know how to do something, but they may not intend to do it. There are lots of reasons why folks don’t actually do what they’ve learned! Of course, the best test is if they are doing it sometime later. E.g. they’ve learned, did, and persisted. But we may want a gateway test first, and I think it’s more than just competence. At any rate, that’s my answer to the question of whether assessment of capability is enough. What’s yours?

After writing this, and before it’s published, I came across IBSTPI’s Competency-Based Education webinar slides, and realized that they’re talking about dispositions in this role. Interesting…though really the proof is what happens when they can apply it, not what they say beforehand. However, if we track that, we might start getting criteria about what other clues we need.