Transformational Higher Education in the Built Environment

Journal for Education in the Built Environment, Vol. 4, Issue 1, July 2009 pp 100-112 (13) ISSN: 1747-4205 (Online)

Transformational Higher Education in the Built Environment Sidney Newton: The University of New South Wales, Australia

Abstract Competency-based training has become synonymous with training per se. It has had a particular and major impact on vocational education and training and it is perhaps unsurprising that professional associations have moved to adopt competency-based accreditation of study programmes. However, this paper will argue that the nature of university education, the constraints on course structure, the traditions of teaching, etc. collectively militate against effective competency-based educational models. At the same time, there are significant questions being raised against the promotion of competencies as an effective measure of professional education. Educational providers, legislators, and professional associations appear to disagree about what competency actually means and what the nature of expertise really is. This paper will draw on the emerging concepts of transformative learning to propose perhaps a more radical response to what appears to be an ongoing (and ultimately losing) battle to condense further and further the professional programmes of study in the built environment. The conceptual framework it presents calls for a displacement of competency and knowledge as the primary drivers of degree programmes in the built environment. Instead it argues for a more psycho-social approach to learning, where certain technical content is replaced with personal transformation as the driver of learning. The psycho-social approach privileges a Case-in-Point method of teaching. It moves the focus of education away from the individual learner gaining a discrete body of abstract knowledge, acquired and subsequently applied in practice. It treats learning as an interpretive process in which understanding is related to action contexts, and not to prescribed conceptual structures.

Keywords: Transformative Learning, Competency-Based Training, Case-in-Point

100 Copyright © 2009 CEBE

S. Newton: Transformational Higher Education in the Built Environment

Introduction Background Educational frameworks are taking centre stage at the moment, particularly at the national level. Most notably, perhaps, is the Bologna Framework. The Bologna Framework is in the process of being rolled-out across the European Union (BFUG Working Group on Qualifications Frameworks, 2007). Like other such frameworks, it seeks to provide a broadbased, common mechanism for the comparison of academic qualifications. The rationale for such a framework is to provide a common understanding across jurisdictions of what a particular level of qualification might represent in broad terms of the type and duration of study. In this way, educational qualifications become more readily transferable and transactional. The rationale is strong, and the Bologna process is now being mirrored globally – see, for example, recent proposals for Canada (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, 2007) and Australia (Bradley et al., 2008). One of the key features characteristic of these education frameworks is the provision of an explicit educational pathway for learners, from school to work (BFUG Working Group on Qualifications Frameworks, 2007). One natural driver for such an explicit pathway, inevitably, is the end-point to be achieved – the capability to work. Capability to work is most often expressed in terms of competency. Competency, fundamentally, is about the development and assessment of the capacity for a person to perform certain tasks, in given situations, in a particular way (Cowan et al., 2007). So a consequence of the development of broad educational frameworks has been a far stronger focus on such competencies. This has direct consequences for any higher education sector, particularly in the context of the built environment where specific professional education has such an emphasis. A focus on competency has also been promoted by industry more generally, where competency-based training has revolutionised workplace training (Dawkins, 1989). A consequence of this has been for the more specifically vocational training sectors to also adopt the language and protocols of competency-based training – see, for just one example, Australia’s national strategy for vocational education and training (Australian National Training Authority, 2004). Professional accreditation bodies in the built environment have also been advocates of a competency-based approach – see, again as just one example, The Cooperative Accreditation Agreement of the Australian Institute of Building, Australian Institute of Quantity Surveying and Australian Institute of Building Surveyors (Australian Institute of Building, 2006).

Aims and methodology of this paper It would appear that, increasingly, competency-based training provides a default terminology for the national framing and accreditation of education in general, including higher education. The first aim of this paper, therefore, is to critique competency-based training in the context of higher education in the particular context of the built environment. The critique is motivated by a growing concern that higher education is being directed along a path it can neither

101 Journal for Education in the Built Environment, Vol. 4, Issue 1, July 2009 Copyright © 2009 CEBE


deliver effectively nor sustain over the longer term. Indeed, it is argued that the real strength of higher education lies in another context of education altogether: transformational education. The paper will review competency-based training and how it has been used to underpin professional accreditation of higher education. Particular emphasis is placed on the implications of such an approach for the selection of competencies in a changing world; the expressed needs of industry for graduate attributes; emerging trends in higher education in terms of staffing and student cohorts; and the challenge of assessment in a competencybased training model. The conclusion of this critique is that a crisis is looming. The question then is how most effectively to position higher education in the built environment to avoid such a crisis. The paper will consider one possibility – transformative learning. With transformative learning the focus is very different to competency-based training, and this paper will contrast the two concepts. One key challenge remains how transformative learning might actually be taught. In this regard a particular teaching technique (Case-in-Point), developed at the Harvard Kennedy School and employed by the author, will be presented in overview.

The Growing Domination of Competency-Based Training What is competency-based training? There remains a significant difference of opinion, within the literature, on a range of issues relating to competency-based training: how best to define and distinguish competency itself; what might constitute a competency-based training model; and how competency-based assessment and accreditation might be implemented most effectively (Abhworth & Morrison, 1991). According to the U.S. Department of Education, a competency is defined as the “combination of skills, abilities, and knowledge needed to perform a specific task” (Jones et al., 2001, p. 7). There is clearly an emphasis on the combination of theoretical knowledge with practical experience. This emphasis is one of the most consistent elements found in how competency is defined more generally. It is an important common emphasis, however. It makes explicitly clear that competency is fundamentally about the assessment of the capacity for a person to perform certain professional tasks, in given situations, in a particular way (Cowan et al., 2007). In this sense, the relevance of competency-based training to professional practice (and vocational training more generally) is undeniable: professional competence is inevitably benchmarked against a particular set of specific competencies. The concern of this paper is not, therefore, in regard to the nature of professional competence and how it may or may not be constituted. Rather, this paper takes issue with the use of those professional competencies, so identified, as the basis for the accreditation of professional, higher educational degree programmes in the built environment generally and construction management in particular. In other words, the issue here is about the relevance of a competency-based training model for vocational higher education degrees.



The background to competency-based training The emergence of competency-based training has been driven largely by industry, specifically by the response of industry to broader-level skill shortages (Dawkins, 1988). It has long been realised that the operation of any business or undertaking (existing or proposed) can be broken down into particular resource requirements. The human resource component of those requirements can be identified quite directly in terms of particular competencies. It matters little if it is the strategic plan for an entire business, the performance of a particular department, project, team or even an individual. Given a particular set of performance targets, a comprehensive list of the competencies required to satisfy such targets can also be made explicit. These requirements can then be compared with a survey of the scope and depth of existing competencies within the organisation, department, project, team or individual. It is then possible for a mapping of the capacity/capability gaps, between what is required and what is available, to be generated (Mawer, 1992). Almost surgically, some might argue, training interventions can be identified and targeted to provide all of those, and only those, competencies required of particular individuals: no unnecessary training, no wasted resources, and everything driven directly by business objectives. Of course that places a lot of emphasis, and responsibility, on identifying the required competencies correctly. But as a driver of human resource recruitment and training, competency-based training has been a major growth area in recent years (Australian National Training Authority, 2004). Competency-based training has been a revolution for workplace training – but it has been an industrial revolution. In seeking to divide professional practice into discrete, specialised and contained tasks, where no resources are to be wasted on learning anything other than those particular discrete, specialised and contained tasks, competency-based training has tended to become reductionist and prescriptive (Betts & Smith, 1998). Any such reductionist approach fails fundamentally to address the needs of professional practice, which is something entirely more holistic in nature (Eraut, 1994). Thus competency-based training, initially at least, failed to satisfy the requirements of professional practice. In response, the concept of competency-based training has undergone a series of significant evolutions and improvements. These improvements have included a better alignment of training tasks with the development from novice to expert: different levels of competency have been introduced to stage the learning of particular competencies. Competency-based training has also been improved by including a broader mix of competency types, to more explicitly include attitudes and values as learning outcomes. However, this expansion brought new problems of how to measure the different levels of competencies and more subjective considerations with reasonable fidelity (Cheetham and Chivers, 2005).

The assessment of competency-based training Assessment within a more complex competency framework is of particular concern. Notwithstanding that such competencies have first to be identified correctly, effective assessment demands that common, clear and explicit standards have to be agreed and established (Sullivan, 1995). Along with such standards the valid and reliable evidence



required to demonstrate when and how each competency has/is to be satisfied must also be specified. All of this information then constitutes the common assessment framework that each teacher and assessor must understand and interpret in an agreed manner. Throw into this already complex mix the fact that learning situations vary, assessment can involve a range of different methods (from observation through to personal reflection), and the fact that assessment is inevitably judgement-based, the potential for inequity is clear. Of course such frameworks have been developed successfully in particular contexts, even at a national level. The question and issue remains, however, whether effective frameworks can be developed for a higher education context where the significance of implicit cognitive processes is more acute (Rowntree, 1992; Nagelsmith, 1995). The difficulties exposed in assessment of competencies are then reflected in the difficulties faced by the teachers of those competencies. To be properly prepared to teach professional practice competencies it can be argued that the educators need, to a substantial degree, to be an expert practitioner themselves (Schön, 1983; Benner, 1984). In the context of the built environment, it is increasingly difficult to appoint academic staff with research credentials and who also have the breadth of professional expertise needed to teach or assess complex professional competencies. According to Sullivan (1995), the following characteristics are essential elements for an effective assessment framework to operate: 

Competencies are carefully selected;



Supporting theory is integrated with skill practice. Essential knowledge is learned to support the performance of skills;



Detailed training materials are keyed to the competencies to be achieved and are designed to support the acquisition of knowledge and skills;



Methods of instruction involve mastery learning, the premise that all participants can master the required knowledge or skill, provided sufficient time and appropriate training methods are used;



Participants’ knowledge and skills are assessed as they enter the programme and those with satisfactory knowledge and skills may bypass training or competencies already attained;



Learning should be self-paced;

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Flexible training approaches including large group methods, small group activities and individual study are essential components;



A variety of support materials including print, audiovisual and simulations (models) keyed to the skills being mastered are used;



Satisfactory completion of training is based on achievement of all specified competencies.

These characteristics describe a process for the development of effective competency-based accreditation. It is not clear whether it is possible to take only a selection of these characteristics and still constitute a competency-based approach. In fact, examples where a 104 Journal for Education in the Built Environment, Vol. 4, Issue 1, July 2009 Copyright © 2009 CEBE


complete implementation of this list has been achieved are rare across the spectrum of educational settings. In professional degree education and accreditation settings such as the built environment, the full list would appear increasingly unattainable.

Some implications of a competency-based training approach Competency-based training has revolutionised vocational training, and now features prominently in workplace training and across the school and vocational education sectors (Voorhees, 2001). The adoption of a competency-based accreditation process by various professional bodies might be assumed to be a simple extension of that revolution in training and education. However, the degree context is very different to workplace and diploma-level studies. One of the most apparent consequences of a competency-based accreditation process for the built environment has been a relentless increase in the range and scope of competencies being identified/required by accrediting bodies. More and more content is being included in/imposed upon the same programme structures. Whilst other factors are also certainly at play, it is clear that traditionally separate disciplines are now being combined into the same programme of study. In Australia, for example, almost all quantity surveying and building degrees have now been amalgamated in this way. The combined competencies for both quantity surveying and building professional accreditations then have to be contained within a single programme. At the same time, teaching traditions have tended to focus on lecture-based presentation and delivery of the content. Changing pressures for larger class-sizes, reduced contact time, lower staff-student ratios, etc. make it more and more difficult to support competency-based training and assessment in the higher education sector. In any event, anecdotal evidence suggests that the built environment professions are tending to favour more generic graduate attributes over specialist competencies, especially as graduates increasingly fail to satisfy the traditional expectations for specialist competencies. This trend is likely only to be accentuated by generation X and Y graduates, who manifestly seek to avoid the longer durations of study typically required for effective competency-based training. A crisis appears to be developing around competency-based training in the higher education context. In very broad terms: industry is not satisfied with the levels of competency that universities are perceived to be producing; academic staff do not have the same depth of industry experience as their predecessors; degree programmes are already packed with content and do not have the space to accommodate a full suite of professional competencies; and, today’s students are tending to be motivated to learn only that particular mix of competencies tailored to their individual career aspirations. At the same time, there has been a strong growth in demand from employers for educational outcomes that demonstrate those graduate attributes associated with dealing professionally with disruptive challenges: problem solving, team work, ethics, creativity, resilience, leadership, etc. These have a very different focus to the bulk of competencies listed by professional associations, and are exceptionally difficult to contain in a competency-based approach to learning. Perhaps another approach is called for. 105 Journal for Education in the Built Environment, Vol. 4, Issue 1, July 2009 Copyright © 2009 CEBE


The Emergence of Transformative Learning What is transformative learning? The notion of transformative learning, originally proposed by Mezirow (1991), seeks to address the process of change involved when students move from a schooling context to a working context. It is particularly focussed on the more fundamental, personal aspects of this change: moving beyond the learning of facts and information, to learning/identifying the framework of personal values and attitudes within which facts and information are interpreted, to challenging and changing the personal worldviews, value frameworks and ‘habits of mind’ that drive and constitute our (learning) behaviour (Cranton, 1997). Under the traditional rubric of transformative learning there are two schools of thought: (i) the rationalists who focus more on an explicit process of critical reflection and discourse, deconstructing experiences in a prescriptive process of self-examination, adjustment and reintegration (Taylor, 1998); (ii) the psycho-socialists who focus on extra-rational sources (or ‘prompts’) that are more intuitively/emotionally based, and involve the development of sensitivities and presencing over critical reflection (Grabov, 1997). Since the initial dichotomy, various versions and hybrids of the two schools have emerged. This paper presents an interpretation and application of transformative learning that offers a different orientation to teaching and learning, from the more generic personal transformation of the approach in general. The particular interpretation adopted here is intended to address the learning requirements of professional education in the built environment, specifically in terms of how students engage (directly) with (and in) the socio-cultural aspects of construction management practice. These socio-cultural practices are the shared routines, sensibilities, vocabulary, styles, artefacts, procedures, etc. that the people who constitute a particular professional group have developed over time (Wenger, 1998): what Schön (1983) refers to as the ‘language, media and repertoire’ of a particular professional practice. These learning requirements are often considered in terms of ‘communities of practice’ or ‘situated learning’ responses (Lave & Wenger, 1991). For communities of practice and situated learning responses, the operational context is the actual working environment itself. The focus on transformative learning provides for an effective teaching response to occur within a classroom setting, and therefore is likely to be more practicable than the communities of practice or situated learning approaches in many instances.

What does transformative learning offer? In contrast to a competency-based training approach, where the emphasis is on particular competency outcomes, transformative learning puts the emphasis on changing the framework that drives and interprets our learning. Students often enter higher education with a view of learning based on authority and achievement. Authority is deemed to include the teaching staff who determine what and how the content will be taught and learned. The authority offers such qualities as knowledge, predictability, safety, answers and power. Students tend to expect and welcome the authority as this mirrors the context in which they successfully achieved at school. Authority provides a robust comfort zone for the new



learning context. Achievement in learning is typically gauged by the grades and equivalent performance measures applied to the study programme. Grades provide a hugely important driver for an increasingly achievement-focussed generation of students. Authority and achievement complement each other because each reinforces the other’s need: to maximise achievement, students expect an authority to deliver ‘comfortable’ learning. Transformative learning in this context moves to break the dependency on authority and achievement. It does this in order to place students in a learning context more like the working environment they will face on graduation. It would appear that the working environment today is far less structured, less dependent on contained specialist knowledge and more complex than previously. Transformative learning offers the possibility of challenging an existing mindset/expectation around authority and achievement, to better enable a student to understand and deal with the working environment they will face. This personal reorientation is particularly important for a rapidly changing working context. It equips students with the concepts and understanding to appreciate the need for transformational change, what is required to achieve transformational change and how to promote transformational change in others and in organisations (Newton, 2008). Thus, transformational change provides the essential tools for students to become effective agents of change. In addition to these broad outcomes, transformational learning also offers a more direct alternative to competency-based training. There is no argument here against the need for a range of competencies to be taught and learned within a higher educational context. It is the singular emphasis and focus on competency-based training that manifestly seems to be developing, that is being called into question in this paper. Rather than a comprehensive (and therefore large) set of required competencies this paper calls for more focus on what are typically referred to as ‘graduate attributes’. Mezirow (2000) argues that transformative learning leads to students having improved self-knowledge, who are more mindful, autonomous, reflective, able to deal with change, creative, socially responsible, ethical, etc. These are commonly cited as the graduate attributes higher education programmes typically seek to develop in their graduates. With the force and imperative imposed by professional accreditation, among other factors, such graduate attributes are increasingly given only lipservice. Transformational learning puts the focus directly back onto such graduate attributes as explicit outcomes from the learning experience.

How is transformative learning taught? It is notoriously difficult to teach personal transformation, particularly in the context of an undergraduate degree programme at university. It is certainly so when operating within the paradigm of teaching that presumes learning to involve knowledge transfer, and to revolve around a process of reading, lecture, expert presentation, formal discussion, note-taking, exams, etc. Teaching based on knowledge transfer is very different to teaching based on the preparation of students to exercise the judgement and skill needed to bring that knowledge to application in practice. It is different again to teaching based on the promotion of selfawareness and the capacity to operate effectively in the face of an adaptive challenge. The



role considered for transformative learning in this paper is with regard to this latter teaching ambition. How might teaching based on the promotion of self-awareness and the capacity to operate effectively in the face of an adaptive challenge be taught to a reasonably large, undergraduate class? A particular approach currently being applied and explored by the author is a technique that uses the classroom as a ‘Case-in-Point’. Case-in-Point teaching is an approach to teaching developed by Ronald Heifetz and his colleagues at the Harvard Kennedy School (Heifetz, 1994). Essentially, it draws from the expectations, situations, feelings, dynamics, behaviour and discussions that occur within the classroom setting, as an immediate experiential reference point for discussions and reflections on transformative learning (Parks, 2005). The author has now twice taught a first-year project management course to 100-160 first year construction management undergraduate students using this Case-in-Point approach, to surprisingly good effect. Case-in-Point essentially follows the U-Process developed by Senge and Kahane (Kahane, 2004), where three phases are required for transformation: a sensing phase, where the emphasis is on acknowledging and recognising the impact of our mindsets on what we do; a letting-go phase, where habits, blind-spots and historical presumptions are identified so as to be suspended; and a presencing phase, where an expanded sense of self (through reflection) is realised. It involves a process of naming, where particular terms/metaphors are introduced as a shorthand vocabulary to refer to elements of the sensing, letting-go and presencing phases of transformation. For example, the notion of a ‘balcony-and-the-dancefloor’ is used to discuss the different perspectives it is possible to take on a situation when a person is actively involved in the moment, actions and discussions (acting on the dance floor), contrasted with that of the more reflective perspective where relationships and dynamics are perhaps more apparent (acting on the balcony). Naming and discussing such issues not only builds an effective lexicon for conversations, but acts to sensitise the student to particular roles, characteristics and possibilities. Case-in-Point articulates a rich assortment of terms, each introduced in response to some immediate experience. It has generally been applied to the teaching of leadership, specifically the adaptive leadership needed when responding to complex and uncertain situations (such as those following a catastrophic event). However, the nature of the transformation required to learn how to practise adaptive leadership is no different fundamentally to that required to improve self-knowledge, become more mindful, autonomous, reflective, able to deal with change, be creative, socially responsible, ethical, etc. In other words, here is a teaching process that does emphasise graduate attributes. Less dependence on professional competencies would free space in the programmes to include more explicit Case-in-Point teaching, and thereby more effectively promote graduate attributes.



In Conclusion Competency-based training has become synonymous with training per se. It has had a particular and significant impact on vocational education and training, and it is unsurprising perhaps that professional bodies have moved to adopt competency-based accreditation of study programmes in the built environment. However, the nature of university education, the constraints on course structure, the traditions of teaching, etc. collectively militate against effective competency-based educational models. At the same time, there are significant questions being raised about the promotion of competencies as an effective measure of professional education (Newton, 2007). Educational providers, legislators and professional associations each tend to disagree about what competence means and what the nature of expertise actually is. This paper has proposed an alternative emphasis, shifting away from competency-based training towards a more transformative learning. Transformative learning is presented as a psycho-social approach to learning, where content is replaced with process as the driver of learning. The psycho-social moves the focus of education away from the individual learner gaining a discrete body of abstract knowledge, acquired and subsequently applied in practice. It treats learning as an interpretive process in which understanding is related to action contexts, and not to prescribed conceptual structures. A particular method of teaching transformative learning has been identified. The Case-inPoint method mixes a ‘naming-and-framing’ of particular situational features with a sensing, letting-go and presencing approach. Where previously this has generally been applied to teaching adaptive leadership, it is now being applied to the more direct teaching of particular graduate attributes. It is the broad contention of this paper that teaching a full spectrum of professional competencies in the built environment is untenable in the current university context. A mixed approach, in which a substantially scaled-down set of such competencies are complemented with more explicit teaching of graduate attributes, would appear a more realistic and appropriate proposition in the current context of higher education in the built environment.



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