The importance of transversal competencies and judgement capacity in learning and professional practice has been considered by a number of researchers. Down et al (1999) argue that the development of skills attributes in higher education and the development of key competencies in vocational training are similar concepts that both require the ability to make sound judgements. Trevelyan (2010) posits that the social interactions between engineers in the workplace and those of learners in cooperative learning environments are very similar. Practice is dependent upon the distribution of expertise that is difficult to transfer and often has little common understanding. He further questions whether current PBL models are sufficient when he claimed that they do not explain the phenomenon of error detection or the considerable time and effort exerted in informal communication. A study by Down (2000) on how effectively key competencies were integrated into training revealed some degree of confusion about the identification of key competences. These studies illustrated the difficulty in interpreting and transferring higher level statements and criteria for skills development and this paper proposes that these skills should be viewed at the level of human cognition known as judgement. Further to this point, Cowan (2010) discusses the central role of judgement capacity in lifelong and personal development and self and peer assessment and that such judgements should be based on fact rather than values or systems of belief. In contrast to the widely held view that engineering is technical work, problem
solving and design carried out in isolation, Trevelyan (2010) described engineering practice as a predominantly social activity between engineers necessary to delivering predictable outcomes from unpredictable from human interactions. Hager (1999) considered making better judgements to be an ideal objective of learning in the workplace and that improvement could be expressed as the capacity to make appropriate judgements.
1.2 Activity led Learning
Activity Led Learning (ALL) is defined as “a self-directed process in which the individual learner, or team of learners, seek and apply relevant knowledge, skilful practices, understanding and resources (personal and physical) relevant to the activity [being undertaken]” Current ALL practice at Coventry University is based on work by Wilson-Medhurst et al (2008:2) and earlier work on problem based learning PBL by Savin-Baden(2000) who states that PBL was developed at McMaster University and cites Barrows & Tamblyn's (1980) claim that learning through the examination and solving of problems is more effective than memorising knowledge for developing a usable body of knowledge. The central premise of ALL is that the learning experience is based on a problem based activity with the learners at the centre of a community of inquiry. The problem and activity are placed before knowledge and the learner is placed in a challenging learning environment to make connections between what they experience through action and knowledge. ALL is thought to provide learning environments in which judgements can be exercised to develop the capacity to make professional judgements.
1.3 Key Competences
There have been numerous initiatives to define key competences or construct frameworks of essential transversal competences. The following two cases are provided to illustrate the outputs typical of such initiatives. They may be strategic statements that reflect broader national objectives such as the recommendations made by the European Parliament on key competences for lifelong learning on 18 December 2006. The framework listed below, proposed a definition for eight key competences and the associated essential knowledge, skills and attitudes. (EU Parliament & EU Council 2006)
1. Communication in the mother tongue, 2. Communication in foreign languages,
3. Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology. 4. Digital competence
5. Learning to learn
6. Social and civic competences.
7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship 8. Cultural awareness and expression,
More specifically, Serrano et al (2011) proposed a list of attributes of transversal competences expressed at a behavioural level having the following common fundamental characteristics.
1. They must integrate knowledge, skills or abilities and attitudes or values.
2. They entail an interrelation of capacities and are manifested at the level of behaviour. 3. They possess a practical dimension, regarding execution.
4. They are developed in a specific context, normally complex and changing. 5. They are global in nature, in order to respond to problematic situations.
There is no inherent way of knowing from these frameworks to what extent the competences should be exercised or how they can be combined. This implies self direction and would appear to support the position that judgement is a core definitive function in their execution rather than adherence to a set of rules. This presents some difficulty in any attempt to define any kind of skill within frameworks that are criterion based. On the other hand, transversal skills in professional practice require the individual to be able to exercise judgements in particular contexts some of which are difficult to measure and apply criteria. Often, judgement has to be exercised in uncertainty and in the absence of some types of knowledge and professional judgement can be erroneous. This is in contrast with the general public view of scientific reliability in professional
judgement (Eraut 1994:155). Eraut (1994:124) also held the view that attempts to develop frameworks of professional competences had all failed and referred to Merleau-Ponty's claim that perception and understanding is about acquiring flexible styles of behaviour rather than rules (Merleau-Ponty 1945). Professional competence may be more readily defined by considering transversal skills at the level of judgement and expert judgement capacity as opposed to trying to capture then in higher level statements. For example we can examine an instance encompassing the five aforementioned attributes posited by Serrano et al (2011). The following extract of learners employing transversal competences in an uncertain technical domain is taken from a larger study on developing judgement capacity through Activity Led Learning.
1.3.1 Apprentices' Background
One team of engineering apprentices were working on very earliest stages of their project plan, producing a Gantt chart, risk matrix, risk register, ball park costing and basic technical detail. In effect they were defining the initial problem space of the project. Their main activity involved discussion of various priorities, necessary conditions and desirable attributes and researching potential options with an i-phone and mobile internet connection. In the interaction, each apprentice brings different views of technical knowledge, skill sets and values to the problem space and these activities could be considered implicitly to integrate knowledge, skills or abilities and attitudes or values. At the level of judgement, what can be discerned of skill becomes much more detailed. From the apprentices' accumulated experience of machining practice they have some information and analogies from which to judge the absence of necessary information and make judgements about the composition of the problem space. This includes judgments of discrimination, relevance, appropriateness and value and hypotheticality. Time estimates were optimistic and heuristically based upon their experience of machining and how much effort they think is involved. They have no specific data to make rational judgements of inference and the only information that the immediate future will present is related to the kinds of material they might use. Despite having little concrete information they arrived at an unqualified but not unreasonable idea of the effort, time and potential obstacles to their project. Their initial estimate for costs was £21K. The judgements they exercised are almost entirely heuristic at this stage but their justifications viz. judgements of hypotheticality, factuality, counterfactuality are debated quite forcefully. Their risk register was detailed with ten operational threats to the project, also indicating they have made numerous judgements of hypotheticality, factuality and counterfactuality including judgements of relevance, inference, and appropriateness. (Igarashi et al 2014)
2 Methodology
The research question asks 'What is the learners' experience of making judgements in the ALL environment and what does that tell us about the construction of ALL to promote the development of capacity for professional judgement?' When an individual exercises judgements they intend a state of affairs about a particular proposition. Judgements are made in order to make sense of our thoughts whenever a situation is perceived or cogitated, and what we intend by our judgements is what we make of the world (Sokolowski 2000). We make judgements of discrimination i.e. identity, difference, similarity, membership; judgements of composition, division, inference, relevance, causality, analogy, appropriateness, value, hypotheticality, counterfactuality, practicality, factuality, reference, measurement, translation and instrumentality (Lipman 2003). Judgements, are resistant to measurement particularly in complex contexts, however all premeditated action must be preceded by one or more judgements. When we observe the actions of others we actually observe the 'residues' of their judgements. By recording those actions and analysing for them for meaning in context we are able to infer that judgements of a particular type were made. A phenomenological methodology and research method was adopted for this study in order to capture the phenomena of judgement and understand the learners' experiences of making judgements as they occurred (Gray 2009).
2.1 Method
The dialogues and actions of the learners were recorded as they engaged in ALL in order to acquire an audit trail from which their judgements can be inferred. Manually recorded observation and interviews learner and learner's logbooks were the research tools used for data capture. Observation permits the learner's interactions
with their environment and other participants to be captured as they occur. Interviews and log books enable the learners to record their actions and decisions and particularly those that are most salient so that the problem space can be inferred as the learner intends it. These records of learners' actions and dialogues are then examined in the context in which they occurred to infer the type of judgements that were exercised. The following extract from a learner logbook Fig 1. illustrates the extraction method.
Figure 1: Apprentice learner logbook and inference of judgement.
It is not possible to know all the judgements that were made since not all judgements determine in an observable outcome. By using phenomenological methods the assumptions that normally attend the observations of others are suspended in order that the experience of making judgements can be understood purely from the perspective of the research subject (Lester 1999).