What People Have Said About Human Competence: "Among the ideas bulging from this classic work: performance exemplars, potential for improving performance, behavior-accomplishment distinction, performance matrix, ACORN troubleshooting test, performance audits, states, Worth = Value - Cost, knowledge maps, mediators, and job aids. The great accomplishments Gilbert left behind will continue to profit behavior analysis and performance improvement for a long, long time." --Ogden Lindsley, Behavior Research Company "Human Competence is probably the most borrowed and least returned book in my library. It?s good to have it in print more than once, so that I can keep replacing it, and rereading it for new insights from the original master of HPT." --Rob Foshay, TRO Learning, Inc. "Human Competence stands not only as a tribute to Tom's genius, but also as the best single source of ideas about performance technology. It is a 'must have' for anyone serious about changing the performance of individuals or organizations." --Dick Lincoln, Centers for Disease Control

European competitiveness in a global perspective is a major issue on the agenda of the European Union and European industry. The question of competitiveness is often re lated to continual technological change and changing work structures to create more flexible and adaptive work places. But these changes are in themselves insufficient to meet the demands of a turbulent business environment, if they are not brought about in close relationship with and anchored to the development of the human resource poten tial. Technological innovation and modern post-Tayloristic work structures place new demands on workers. Workers' abilities and competencies must be raised in virtually every sphere - in what are termed the new key/core competencies related to knowl edge and cognitive skills, social skills, general and work related personality character istics together with a high level of technological ability. At the same time, to make optimal use of the human potential, the way in which work is organised and accord ingly the way in which people are managed, must allow workers to develop and use the required competencies. An integrated Human Resource Development approach is needed in which workers abilities and competencies take a central place. European competitiveness, from this perspective, implies a strategic choice by European compa nies and policy makers to invest in people and their (potential) abilities.

In today’s complex and ever-changing world it has become obvious that even highly developed knowledge and skills are no longer sufficient to meet new challenges, situations and problems facing individuals, organisations and nations. This raises an enormous and potentially confusing issue for educators and trainers: how is it possible to generate and assess abilities to deal with challenges and problems unknown – or not even in existence – at the time when the learning takes place? The book builds on the experiences and insights of its expert contributors, all of whom have worked with, studied and analysed competences and how they are developed. Their collected work presents Comprehensive explanation and analysis of the concept and nature of competence. Specific contexts of competence development, e.g. in the public sector or small business. Competence development as a national strategy for building an up-to-date education and training system. With chapters from around the world, including the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Scandinavia, this book illustrates in an engaging and convincing manner the importance and innovative nature of the concept of competences, resulting in a varied, differentiated and empathetic guide to the topic. It will appeal to educators, both in academic and management circles, as well as students and administrators of education.

This book radically counters the optimism sparked by Competence Based Education and Training, an educational philosophy that has re-emerged in Schooling, Vocational and Higher Education in the last decade. CBET supposedly offers a new type of learning that will lead to skilled employment; here, Preston instead presents the competency movement as one which makes the concept of human learning redundant. Starting with its origins in Taylorism, the slaughterhouse and radical behaviourism, the book charts the history of competency education to its position as a global phenomenon today, arguing that competency is opposed to ideas of process, causality and analog human movement that are fundamental to human learning.