Workforce Program Assessment Planning Guide

Step 1: Program Outcomes/Core Competencies

Core competencies are those learning outcomes which we consider "core" to student success in our programs. As such, these are the learning outcomes we will measure and assess at the program level.

Several years ago, workforce faculty at Florida State College at Jacksonville determined that workforce core competencies ought to fall into three major categories:

• "literacy," including written, oral, quantitative, etc.
• problem-solving or critical thinking
• program-specific skills, including teamwork and productivity

When the state university system started requiring each bachelor's degree program to establish learning outcomes in communication, critical thinking, and discipline-specific knowledge and skills, we decided to adopt this same model, since three of our categories were essentially the same. "Teamwork" and "productivity" were wrapped into "field-specific skills."

Just to keep things interesting, we also now have general education learning outcomes: communication, critical thinking, scientific/quantitative reasoning, information literacy, and social/cultural awareness/responsibility. Already two of these categories are basically the same as our core competencies, and the other three could easily fit in (e.g. quantitative reasoning could be a subset of literacy, critical thinking, or discipline-specific skills, depending on the field). You should try to ensure that you have at least one outcome that fits into each of the general education outcome areas.

Check out this master matrix of all core competencies that have been developed so far - this also shows how they align with the workforce and general education categories.

To develop your own core competencies for your program, just follow these steps:

1. Review any existing information about required competencies in your field - professional standards, comments from advisory committees, etc

2. Use the Core Competencies Template to outline 3-5 learning outcomes in each category. Develop your core competencies collaboratively with the other faculty in your program. Make sure you have at least one outcome that also represents each of the five general education outcome categories.

3. Ask important stakeholders (e.g. your advisory committee) to review your core competencies, and revise if needed.

4. Send your completed document to Terri Daniels for posting on the Workforce Program Assessment web site.

Go to next step