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The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) employment sector has ever-increasing requirements for internationally capable employees - those with global competencies who can work and engage with business partners and clientele beyond an economy's borders. The APEC Global Competencies and Economic Integration had the following objectives: (1) to develop recommendations for an APEC-wide framework to describe global talent and its requisite elements; (2) to compile APEC-wide data on the business requirements for global talent and on the added value of such talent for trade and regional economic integration; (3) to develop a methodology for measuring the outputs of global talent by creating a pilot survey of the educational sector in selected APEC economies (the USA and Japan and potentially others); and (4) to develop recommendations for APEC economies to strengthen their global talent streams, and to present these recommendations to APEC Human Resources Development Working Group (HRDWG). This report was prepared based on the surveys, extensive research on 'Global Competency', and the discussion of participants at the APEC Workshop on Global Competencies and Economic Integration.

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There has been a great deal of interest in the notion of measuring vocational competencies of late. This trend has been driven mainly by the distinct lack of reliable data on the quality of graduates in higher education (HE). The gap in an evidence base at this level has prevailed partly due to the fact that the higher education landscape is replete with a diversity of programs and contexts. This makes the assessment and indeed, measurement of competencies in this sector challenging, and the likely success of undertakings to do so, questionable. This paper discusses the results of the civil engineering strand of the recent Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) feasibility study, commissioned and completed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This study was unique in scope and intent; the first of its kind to design and develop a robust approach for measuring learning outcomes of graduates worldwide. The aim being to achieve a valid and reliable means for measuring competencies across the diversity of cultures, contexts, languages, institutions and programs. AHELO is an interesting case study, particularly in the context of thinking about the measuring of vocational competencies in an international setting.

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Purpose: This paper aims to measure the extent to which students possess the necessary competences of an employable graduate, the authors explored the development and validation of a questionnaire that measures employability competences of students in higher education through combining insights from higher education and workplace learning literature. Design/methodology/approach: The paper aims to develop and validate the questionnaire. A systematic literature review and factor analyses were conducted. The authors applied the questionnaire to two different groups of students. First, to undergraduate students in an applied sciences program in Belgium (N = 935). The dataset was randomly divided into two subsets to conduct an exploratory and a confirmatory factor analysis. Next, another confirmatory factor analysis was done to cross-validate the factor structure found. For this, the questionnaire was offered to a group of undergraduate and graduate students at a university in The Netherlands (N = 995).

Findings: The results support a model of employability based on combined insights from higher education and workplace learning literature. The model consists of the following seven factors: social competences, e-literacy, efficacy beliefs, flexibility, healthy work–life balance, lifelong learning and oral and written communication. Originality/value: The questionnaire can be utilized to screen students' employability profiles and examine the relationship between teaching practices and students' employability competences.

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Current pedagogical discourse has established that teacher competence is a conditio sine qua non for high level performance in the classroom. Nevertheless questions of conceptualising and measuring teacher competence have yet to be answered. In our study we analyse a facet of teacher competence essential to successful learning processes; namely, teacher competence when diagnosing and responding to student errors in a constructive manner. Two pilot studies investigate how students perceive 'error culture' in their classrooms, and how teachers deal with learner errors during lessons.

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The growing interest for measurement of learning outcomes relates to long lines of development in higher education, the request for accountability, intensified through international reforms and movements such as the development and implementation of qualifications frameworks. In this article, [the authors] discuss relevant literature on different approaches to measurement and how learning outcomes are measured, what kinds of learning outcomes are measured, and why learning outcomes are measured. Three dimensions are used to structure the literature: Whether the approaches emphasise generic or disciplinary skills and competence, self-assessment or more objective test based measures (including grades), and how the issue of the contribution from the education program or institution (the value-added) are discussed.

It is pointed out that large scales initiatives that compare institutions and even nations seem to fall short because of the implicit and explicit differences in context, whilst small-scale approaches suffer from a lack of relevance outside local contexts. In addition, competence (actual level of performance) is often confused with learning (gain and development) in many approaches, laying the ground for false assumptions about institutional process-quality in higher education.

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The princple objectives of the research project reported here were to investigate, design and describe the reaching and learning methodologies and delivery strategies that support the key competencies in the vocational education and training (VET) sector and to identify and report on the specific implications for students experiencing social and educational disadvantage. This report offers chapters on: the context and background of the project; the methodology; problem solving; working with others and in teams; using technology; other providers; measuring competence, professional development, access and equity; and conclusions and issues arising from the research. Show less

In the current vocational education and training (VET) research, many empirical studies focus primarily on the development of competence-based test instruments that aim to measure the cognitive dispositions of a domain-specific competence construct. While these studies mainly focus on the analysis of competence structures and levels, the valid measurement of competence development represents a research gap. Studies with this focus differ significantly in their theoretical-conceptual foundations and their methodological approaches. Moreover, different challenges arise in the methodological aspects of a valid change measurement. For this purpose, the first chapter reviews the research on the measurement of competence development in the VET field. Given the increasing significance of sustainable development-related competencies in VET, an empirical analysis is performed on commercial trainees' development of declarative knowledge related to sustainability from a societal perspective and sustainability in business processes. The in-depth analyses are based on data sets from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. The differences and similarities between these research designs are compared with regard to their analysis potential, analysis methods, and results.

Published abstract.

The volume from which this chapter is taken is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 137.1084. Show less

This paper is part of a project entitled 'The expression, experience and transcendence of low skills in Aotearoa New Zealand', which aims to provide policy recommendations to improve life-course trajectories and socio-economic outcomes of adults living with low literacy and/or numeracy (L+N) skills.

The paper examines conceptual and definitional issues and relevant aspects of the New Zealand (NZ) context, and provides a high level overview of existing evidence. It traces recent developments and debates in the measurement of skills and discusses the implications that arise from these debates in light of the unique bicultural context of NZ. It discusses what is meant by 'skill' and the related concept of competency and how these terms are associated with literacy and numeracy. It looks at how the OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) defines and measures skills. It also looks at the existing evidence on NZ's skill levels and patterns and the importance of skills to economic outcomes and wellbeing.

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This report looks at digital inclusion by examining the digital skills (measured in English) of 16 to 65-year-olds and the use of their digital skills at work and in everyday life. across a spread of strong to weak. New Zealand participated in the OECD's Survey of Adult Skills in 2014. The Survey measured 16 to 65-year-olds' digital skill across a spread of strong to weak. Each participant completed the English language assessment on a laptop computer. The survey also asked how often they participated in digital activities for work and in everyday life. Another key element was the set of categories for people not being able or willing to have their digital skills measured. These were: had no computer experience; opted out of the computer-based assessment (CBA); failed a simple check of computer skills; or could not understand English well enough to participate. The survey also measured literacy and numeracy skills.

This report sets its findings about the spectrum of digital inclusion in the context of the New Zealand Government's 2019 Digital Inclusion Blueprint: Te Mahere mo to Whakaurunga Matihiko. The report's approach is to take strong digital skills (Level 2 or 3) and frequent digital participation as indicating digital inclusion, and weak or unmeasurable digital skills as pointing to digital exclusion. This report also keeps in view the contexts of digital change in the decades before 2014 and the years since, the sudden digital impact in 2020 of the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic, and New Zealand's participation in the second cycle of the Survey in 2022. This report addresses the following questions: How digitally included are different groups of New Zealanders? How much difference do socio-economic variables make to digital inclusion? What are the relationships between people's digital skill and their participation in digital activities for work and in everyday life? What are some aspects of digital exclusion, and what are the characteristics of digitally excluded people? What are the characteristics of people with very strong digital skill?

Summary of key findings: (1) of New Zealanders aged 16 to 65, 44 per cemt had strong digital skills in 2014and this points to their strong digital inclusion; along with Sweden, New Zealand's results ranked highest amongst countries participating in the Survey; (2) digital skill levels corresponded closely to literacy and numeracy skill levels; (3) young people had much stronger digital skills than people older than their mid-forties, though some young people were low skilled or digitally excluded; (4) higher levels of education were associated with stronger digital inclusion; (5) New Zealand had wide ethnic disparities in digital inclusion; (6) the more often workers participated in different digital activities for work, the stronger their digital skill and the higher their average pay rate; (7) participating in digital activities in everyday life was a stronger factor for digital inclusion than participating in digital activities for work; and (8) social trust was associated with digital inclusion.

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Whilst Indigenous Graduate Attributes - or the embedding [of] Indigenous cultural competencies within broad graduate attributes - are becoming increasingly popular within some universities, it is essential that universities be held accountable for the realisation of such policies. Considering that Australian Indigenous Studies - an essential component of Indigenous Graduate Attributes - is a highly contested space where colonial and Indigenous knowledges collide, this article presents evidence from analyses, engaging with Indigenous Standpoints, aimed at evaluating critically the degree to which university subjects may contribute to the realisation of Indigenous Graduate Attributes. Results identify not only an array of psychometrically sound factors which measure Student Knowledges and Attitudes to Indigenous Issues as well as Applied Indigenous Learning, but also indicate that the embedding of Australian Indigenous Studies content may vary across disciplines. In addition, results show that the impact of such embedding on student attitudes also varies greatly according to discipline, with positive, negative, and contradicting results across disciplines. These findings strongly suggest that any commitment to embedding Indigenous Graduate Attributes must be monitored very carefully.

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