Marie and all,
Thanks for invitation to participate in this discussion.  I have some 
initial thoughts in response to your question about the complexity of 
EFF  in comparison to competencies.  I want to ponder a bit more before 
responding to the second part your question about how EFF is different 
from other standards?  (Thanks to my EFF colleagues Aaron Kohring and 
Peggy McGuire for comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this.  
I'm sure they will have more of their own thoughts to add as the 
discussion continues).

The EFF Standards are grounded in different conceptualizations of adult 
performance and adult learning than competency-based education (CBE).  
EFF is based on an understanding of expertise (high-level human 
performance) that comes out of cognitive science research and theory 
developed in the late 1970s and elaborated in the 1980s and 1990s.  CBE 
is based on a somewhat different (and earlier) model of human 
performance that stems from cognitive psychology and 
industrial/organizational psychology research and theory from the 
1960s.  The CBE model is fairly simple.  It assumes that human 
performance can be understood as the ability to accomplish tasks.  It is 
basically focused on the question "What should people be able to do?"  
Researchers studied human performance in various contexts and analyzed 
the tasks that people performed in those contexts.  Through large-scale 
surveys (such as the Adult Performance Level study - APL) tasks were 
identified and through task analysis tasks were placed in a hierarchy 
from simple to complex. This is the basis for the scaled lists of CASAS 
competencies that are the foundation for CASAS tests.  Items on CASAS 
tests are designed to simulate as closely as possible, the tasks that 
people perform in work and life. Through careful design of test items 
and analysis of test results (using Item Response Theory - IRT), CASAS 
has been able to provide a clear picture of the relative difficulty of 
each item (test question) used in the CASAS tests.

EFF's model of human performance goes several steps beyond this analysis 
of the relative difficulty of tasks. EFF focuses on the question "What 
should people know and be able to do?"  To address this question EFF 
researchers developed descriptions of the underlying knowledge, skills, 
and strategies, as well as levels of fluency (ease) and independence 
that adults use as they apply each EFF Standard (each Standard defined 
as a purposeful application of an integrate skill process) in performing 
increasingly more challenging tasks.   Looking at more of the 
cognitively complexity involved in using  skills like Reading With 
Understanding and Conveying Ideas in Writing is what makes the EFF model 
appear more complicated than CBE and CASAS competencies model.  This 
complexity has the advantage of providing more detailed guidance for 
learning, instruction, and assessment.  In a competency-based approach, 
the question of how someone is able to accomplish a task is left open.  
The manner in which knowledge, skills, and abilities are applied to 
accomplishing a task is not addressed directly.  By contrast, cognitive 
science approaches (such as that guiding EFF) let us lift the lid of the 
black box of human performance to better understand (and teach and 
assess) the knowledge, skills, and strategies that adult learners need 
to be successful in performing a wide range of tasks in a wide range of 
contexts.

Regie Stites
SRI International

Marie Cora wrote:


>Good morning, afternoon, and evening to you all.  

> 

>I'm pleased to welcome Peggy, Aaron, Regie, and EFF Center Staff to our

>discussion.  I've been thinking about this over the weekend, and I have

>a couple of questions to start us off:

> 

>For our guests:  

> 

>-The EFF Standards are complex in terms of what they try to capture in a

>performance.  Is this was makes them different from competencies?  Or

>perhaps even different from other standards?  

> 

>For subscribers:  I found the "thought-provokers" really helped me to

>focus on a piece of this big picture so I could get a handle on it.  Did

>anyone try #1 below?  Or perhaps if there are EFF users on the List, you

>might comment on this activity.  As for #2 below - I found this question

>helpful because it did make me consider how often and in what ways I

>would look for achievement over time, and it also made me think that I

>would necessarily look for such incremental gains via classroom

>assessment rather than with a high stakes test. 

> 

>1.  Pick any EFF standard, read its definition, and imagine what it

>would look like if you were actually assessing the application of the

>integrated skill process described in the standard's definition. 

> 

>2.  How often do you feel a need to look for evidence that learning has

>happened?  How does the nature of the evidence you are looking for

>change as you look for learning within the space of one class session,

>one week, one month, one course, one year, and so on.

> 

>Anyway, that's what I was thinking about.  How about you?  Please post

>your questions and comments!

>Thanks,

>marie

>Assessment Discussion List Moderator

> 

>

>  

>

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