Designing a Tool to Assess Professional Competences: Theoretical Foundations and Potential Applications

This conceptual paper outlines the descriptive theoretical foundations or kernel theories for designing an
information and communication technology (ICT) tool to assess professional competences in the Austrian trade and craft sector. Upon completion, the ICT-tool serves as a boundary object in which applicants and assessors can interact. While this paper consists of a literature review and conceptual discussion, the overall project is methodologically placed within a multidisciplinary design-science paradigm. Design science scaffolds and structures the development of a theoretical model, the generation of assessment-items and the ICT-tool itself. This paper discusses the necessary descriptive knowledge or
kernel theories on which the design of the ICT-tool rests. First, we describe the validation of prior learning - a process advocated by the European Union to make professional competences visible. Second, we describe the process how
professional competences come about: through formal, non-formal and informal learning. Subsequently, we outline a
knowledge-driven discourse on professional competences and discuss how different definitions of professional competence
afford different approaches for its assessment. By presenting a use-case, we outline how the ICT-tool may guide applicants and assessors through this process.