Journal of East China Normal University(Educational Sciences) ›› 2020, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (10): 48-59.doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2020.10.004

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On the Misconceptions about Key Competences

Yang Xiangdong   

  1. Department of Educational Psychology, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
  • Published:2020-10-20

Abstract: Emerging from the fast-growing discussions about key competences are a few misconceptions and improper claims.Some consider key competences as key abilities, essential characters or important values; some view domain-specific key competences as the decomposed lower-level realization of the cross-disciplinary key competences; others argue that key competences can be cultivated beyond any specific domain and situations and promoting competence development must go through the cognitive hierarchy as specified in Bloom’s taxonomy of learning outcome, etc. Such misconceptions or claims are primarily due to lack of proper understanding of the epistemology and conceptualization underlying the concept of key competence as well as the new learning perspectives it implies. This article discusses such issues critically based on the relevant theoretical perspectives.

Key words: key competence, domain-specific competence, situation, learning perspective