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Home Membership Benefits of QAA Membership Collaborative Enhancement Projects Assessment Generating a competence-based education framework
Assessment
This Collaborative Enhancement Project brought together universities to reflect on how Competence-Based Education is being developed across the higher education sector. It led to the creation of a website that explores how a competence-based framework has been implemented by different providers.

 

 

The website includes a collection of tools, guides, and information to empower and support you on your adoption of a competence focussed approach.

 

It also features a suite of case studies focusing on how the project’s collaborative partners have implemented competence-based education, including how they have responded with real-world solutions to common, sector-wide challenges in assessment. The reflective pieces include examples across the following areas:

  • Staff development
  • Student support
  • Institutional view of competence
  • Educational development.


The team has created a set of practical materials that support colleagues who are interested in adopting Competence-Based Education in their own contexts. This includes guidance and resources on introducing, developing, levelling and refining competencies and what the opportunities are in your own place of work.



The competence-based education model shifts the focus from what students know to what they can actually do.


Selected outputs

Is ‘constructive disalignment’ undermining Higher Education for everyone?  

This blog explores how ‘constructive disalignment’ - a mismatch between curriculum design and stakeholder needs - may be contributing to growing dissatisfaction with UK Higher Education. It introduces the concept of ‘authentic alignment’, calling for data-informed, competence-based curricula that better reflect the expectations of students, employers and society.

Competence-based education podcast

Researchers from the University of Hull compare the core concepts of competence-based education with those of traditional educational models.

Introduction to the C-BAss framework

This blog introduces the C‑BAss framework - a five-stage model for designing competence-based degree programmes. It helps align competencies, assessment, teaching, and learning materials to ensure students can demonstrate what they can do, not just what they know.


Project lead: University of Hull


Project partners: Oxford Brookes University, University of Cambridge, Bishop Burton College and Hull University Students’ Union

Other Collaborative Enhancement Projects

QAA supports a number of projects every year, covering a range of topics and interest areas. Each is led by a QAA Member, working in collaboration with other members institutions. You can find more information on all projects, and access resources and outputs, on our website.

Find out more