Bridging conceptually academic and occupational learning and credentialing in US postsecondary education. Current developments and research insights on challenges, approaches, and perspectives

Following a US benchmark study on principles and instruments of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA – Bologna Process), both academic and Career and Technical Education and Training in the US are basically facing the same requirements of lifelong learning and employability. Therefore, the study recommended to develop their education programmes and qualifications along learning outcome approaches (see Adelman 2009). Advanced articulation agreements and dual admission alliances between Community Colleges and four years colleges already provide appropriate approaches nihis tsrpecet f(.cgg e Bt l.ar 2a009). The Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) framework for academic US higher education initiated by the Lumina Foundation defines educational quality in terms of student learning and learning outcomes. The DQP focuses on proficiency as the instrument’s guiding key term, understood as a label for a set of demonstrations of knowledge, understanding and skills that satisfy the levels of mastery sufficient to justify the award of an academic degree. The DQP had been tested by over 400 higher education institutions in more than 30 Federal States in terms of curricula revisions and alignments to the profile. (Lumina Foundation, 2014) This was supported by US TUNING under the auspices of 6 major US accreditation bodies. (Tuning USA 2010) It is regarded as a baseline set of reference points of learning outcomes for what academic graduates of Associate, Bachelor or Master degrees hsd knowounal dbae oltb edo. The education policy debate in the US welcomed the DQP as a big step forward to improve the quality of higher academic education in the US. However, more labour market oriented education experts demanded going beyond a degree-oriented approach. The CLASP report Give credit where credit is due (Bird et al. 2011) proposed creating a nation-wide operating competency-based qualifications framework for all postsecondary education and training credentials as keys to individual self-sufficiency, greater civic participation, and higher levels of family well-being as well as the catalysts for local, regional, and national economic growth. The report complains on the one hand that a vast number of adults in the labour market engage in creditworthy occupational education and training. But, in the absence of a system, appropriate instruments and procedures which can equate noncredit occupational education and training to educational credit, they cannot translate their education and training into postsecondary credit. In addition, it is required to reduce institutional barriers between credit-and noncredit-bearing education and to revise the traditional input-driven US creditrtnafer ssystemotardswnac omoenuardtso-se ctsorc-oriented approach. Consequently in 2014 Lumina started the development of a sector-overarching US-wide qualifications framework for lifelong learning to address both degrees and non-degree credentials and released after test based revisions a beta version in 2015 (Lumina Foundation). As in previously developed national and regional qualifications frameworks (cf. EU 2008), the Credentials Framework focuses on learning outcomes to address required competencies as common reference points in terms of what the learner knows and is able to do in different contexts such as colleges or training providers. The Lumina Foundation intends to use the CF in terms of a system for communicating and connecting diverse credentials and facilitating student progression. Following the preceding policy and expert debate, this approach tries to address both degrees as well as non-credit credentials like certificates, industry certifications, licenses, apprenticeships and badges. Supported by a common language, the instrument intends to facilitate understanding and comparison of the levels and types of knowledge and skills underlying the credentials. Like other qualifications frameworks for lifelong learning, the Credentials Framework tries to promote the transparency and the comparability of credentials as well as their portability to facilitate the recognition of learning acquired acrossnititutsions, e.g., viarcdietrtnafer. (csf. Rein 2016). The CF has been organized around requirements and competencies that are addressed by learning outcomes. They are described in knowledge and skills regarded as learning domains of competency, which is classified as the key term of the instrument. The CF goes beyond DQP’s key term proficiency and uses competency as the overarching key term in a holistic comprehension of behavior and capability, that implicitly includes, the credential achievement perspective of the DQP.