Outcomes-based qualification design and vocational subject literacies: When learning outcomes means learning isn’t always the outcome

Learning outcomes-based qualifications were heralded as the means to raise vocational education and training standards, and establish equivalence with academic qualifications. Characterised by explicitly specified performance statements and domain ‘mastery’, outcomes-design has been adopted by many VET systems globally. Yet critics find the model conceptually deficient. Condemnation relates to the relentless assessment burden of the mastery characteristic (Ecclestone 2010; Torrance et al. 2005), the vulnerability of outcomes to instrumental practices such as ‘criteria chasing’ (Garland 1998), and concerns that the model distorts subject knowledge structures, failing to treat curricula holistically (Allais 2014; Wheelahan 2007; Winch 2023).

In England’s VET policy landscape, there seems to be some cognitive dissonance around outcomes. The design template has been found wanting by influential policy reviews such as the Wolf Report (2011), and is now no longer mandated as a design requirement for publicly funded qualifications. Yet despite this fall from grace, outcomes design persists, particularly with the dominance of BTEC qualifications at Levels 2 and 3. In this state of cognitive dissonance, empirical research is important.

This paper draws on provisional findings from qualitative PhD research investigating how vocational subject literacies are interpreted and taught by BTEC teachers. Emergent findings suggest that outcomes interacts with pernicious forms of accountability measures to produce deleterious effects. It is argued that concerns raised decades ago are still relevant, that instrumental ‘criteria chasing’ practices are still prevalent. This research takes a two-pronged approach. First, investigating instrumentalism from a sociocultural perspective, it proposes that outcomes design correlates with a ‘content-delivery’ pedagogical relation. The research also investigates vocational subject knowledge from an epistemological standpoint, finding that outcomes hinders teachers’ ability to treat their subjects holistically.

It is hoped that this research will contribute further empirical evidence relating to outcomes-design, but also to the broader conceptual point that atomistic specification is antithetical to subject knowledge structures.

Teams link: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/3998924894217?p=w17OxMRrSEkx7HdmUb

Allais, Stephanie. 2014. Selling out Education: National Qualifications Frameworks and the Neglect of Knowledge. Vol. 8. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Ecclestone, Katherine. 2010. Transforming Formative Assessment in Lifelong Learning. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Garland, Paul. 1998. “Assessment in GNVQs: Learning the Hard Way.” Research in Post-Compulsory Education 3 (3):329-344. https://doi.org/10.1080/13596749800200040.

Torrance, Harry, Helen Colley, Dean Garratt, Janis Jarvis, Heather Piper, Kathryn Ecclestone, and David James. 2005. The Impact of Different Modes of Assessment on Achievement and Progress in the Learning and Skills Sector. London: Learning and Skills Research Centre.

Wheelahan, Leesa. 2007. “How Competency‐Based Training Locks the Working Class out of Powerful Knowledge: A Modified Bernsteinian Analysis.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 28 (5):637-651. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690701505540.

Winch, Christopher. 2023. “Learning Outcomes: The Long Goodbye: Vocational Qualifications in the 21st Century.” European Educational Research Journal 22 (1):20-38. https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041211043669.

Wolf, Alison. 2011. Review of Vocational Education: The Wolf Report. London.