Competency Research in Higher Education: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges and Perspectives for Future Interdisciplinary Research

Overview & Synopsis

In recent years, an increasing number of research projects have been dedicated to competency assessment not only in school and vocational education, but also in higher education (Blömeke, Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, Kuhn, & Fege, 2013). Compared to competency assessment in schools, competency assessment in higher education still is under-researched. The focus of this journal issue is on interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, projects, and institutions on a national and a cross-national level. The authors draw examples especially from the KoKoHs program, which includes 70 collaboratively organized projects at approximately 50 institutions of higher education in Germany and Austria (Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, Kuhn, & Toepper, 2014). The collaborative project alliances bring together higher education teachers and researchers from specific fields of study, as well as experts of teaching methodology, survey design, psychometrics, translation, media production, and many other fields. Moreover, KoKoHs project teams cooperate with international experts of teaching methodology, test development, and psychometrics from universities and testing institutes in 20 countries (e.g., the United States, Australia, and Japan). Altogether, the articles in this issue illustrate the importance of research on domain-specific and generic knowledge and skills acquired in various teaching-and-learning environments within social and institutional contexts of higher education.