Banner

Competency Overview

A competency is expertise individuals can demonstrate in professional, educational, social, or other life contexts. Competencies include content knowledge, skills, and dispositions.

What is Competency?

Why Competency-Based Education (CBE)?

Alignment with Real-World and Industry Needs:

CBE focuses on what learners can do in practice. Learning outcomes are tied to specific, observable skills used in professional roles.

Examples:

  • Build and deploy a simple web application rather than only explaining how web frameworks work.
  • Analyze a dataset and present findings using a dashboard tool.
  • Write and test code that meets defined requirements, not just describe algorithms.

Competency Typology, including dispositions, skills - broken into cross-disciplinary and computing, and content knowledge

Adaptability in Rapidly Evolving Fields

Computing and engineering tools change frequently. CBE emphasizes transferable competencies that remain useful across tools and platforms.

Examples:

  • Systems thinking that applies whether working with cloud, mobile, or embedded systems.
  • Debugging a broken interface, regardless of hardware type or programming language.
  • Version control practices using tools like Git, regardless of project type.

Development of Cross-Disciplinary Skills

Technical work requires coordination with others. CBE integrates these skills into coursework through applied tasks.

Examples:

  • Working in teams to complete a project with defined roles (project lead, developer, tester).
  • Presenting a technical solution to a non-technical audience.
  • Writing clear documentation or user guides for a product.

Support for Lifelong Learning

CBE builds habits that support ongoing skill development after graduation:

Examples:

  • Setting learning goals based on gaps identified during a project.
  • Using documentation and online resources to learn a new tool independently.
  • Reflecting on project outcomes and identifying what to improve in the next iteration.
  • Digital Literacy and AI Literacy skills to promote appropriate use of relevant resources.

References

CC2020 Task Force. (2020). Computing curricula 2020: Paradigms for global computing education. Computing Curricula 2020. doi:10.1145/3467967

Raj, R. K., Impagliazzo, J., Aly, S. G., Bowers, D. S., Connamacher, H., Kurkovsky, S., MacKellar, B., Prickett, T., & Marques Samary, M. (2022). Toward competency-based professional accreditation in computing. Proceedings of the 2022 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, 1–35. doi:10.1145/3571785.3574121

Raj, R. K., Impagliazzo, J., Aly, S. G., Bowers, D. S., Connamacher, H., Kurkovsky, S., MacKellar, B., Prickett, T., Samary, M. M., & Stefanov, K. (2022). Professional accreditation and competency-based computing education. ITiCSE 2022 – Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, 2, 564–565. doi:10.1145/3502717.3532171

Prickett, T., Crick, T., Davenport, J. H., Bowers, D. S., Hayes, A., & Irons, A. (2024). Embedding technical, personal and professional competencies in computing degree programmes. Annual Conference on Innovation & Technology in Computer Science Education, 1, 346–352. doi:10.1145/3649217.3653578