Competence and the Need for Transferable Skills
Transferable skills are skills that are relevant and helpful across different situations and areas of life. Such skills are often seen as a crucial factor adding to the employability of individuals. It is often assumed that transferable skills can be reus
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Competence and the Need for Transferable Skills Christof Nägele and Barbara E. Stalder
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Introduction
In Chap. 1 in this volume, professional competence is defined as a prerequisite for effective performance which consists of knowledge, skills and attitudes (Mulder et al. 2007). Just as the knowledge component in competence (see Chap. 33 of Dietzen in this volume), the skill component deserves separate attention. Like in the description of the construct of competence, there is wide variation in the definition of skills. Sometimes skills and competencies are being used interchangeably. Skills describe specific abilities that are developed directly in real-life situations or through education and training and later on transferred to the real-life situation. This chapter will focus on transferable skills, since they are much sought after by employers. Transferable skills are skills that can be used to act efficiently in different real-life situations. They can be technical and non-technical. The discussion on transferable skills focuses mainly on non-technical skills (as, e.g. social skills or problem-solving skills) and partly also on basic technical skills (as, e.g. basic ICT skills) that seem to be useful in many different situations. The underlying assumption is that skills acquired in one context can be (easily) applied and reused in a new and different context. Important questions however are which skills are transferable and how they can be taught and trained in order to supply learners and students with the transferable skills needed for their future employment. In this chapter, first, an overview on different definitions and conceptualisations of transferable skills is given. Second, transferable skills are discussed with respect to the employability of individuals. Transferable skills are important in recruiting C. Nägele (*) University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Solothurn, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] B.E. Stalder University of Teacher Education, Bern, Switzerland © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 M. Mulder (ed.), Competence-based Vocational and Professional Education, Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects 23, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41713-4_34
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new employees as they promise that an individual becomes quickly competent in new situations (Rarrek and Werner 2012). Third, the assumption that transferable skills are transferable is critically evaluated, as there is evidence that skills cannot be easily transferred between different contexts (Gurtner et al. 2007; Sternberg 2005). One reason is that skills develop within a specific context and are thus bound to this context. Individual, social and contextual factors determine the actual transfer of skills. Fourth, the way in which skill transfer can be fostered through education and training will be discussed. How and whether skills can be transferred at all has been an issue in policy, education and personnel selection alre
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