One or several models for competence descriptions: Does it matter?

In the late 1980s, job and competence descriptions appeared as a necessity for human resource development (HRD). Afterward, they were used more and more to build or to change training programs. In a country such as France, which promotes life-long learning through the VAP Act (Accreditation of Work Experience), and since January 2002, through a new act concerning VAE (Accreditation of Experiential Learning), will they still have to evolve? In fact, the way we define competencies is necessarily oriented toward our professional objectives. Consequently, the size of tasks, activities, employment, or job path analyses varies depending on the aims of those in charge of the diagnosis. Furthermore, the contents of competencies have to change, as do their definitions. Are competencies acquired as they are observed or validated in a professional activity? Can they easily become training aims, validated through simulated conditions of activity or very specific evaluations, and what content changes are required? These changes in competence content depending on the aim of their evaluation is what I will analyze through the various uses of a sociological analysis method called ETED (Typical Employment Studied in its Dynamics). The illustrations are based on an analysis and training reform operating in 1999 in the field of accountancy, including a look at the whole employment path and the way one can progress from one task to another within a typical job. They also represent the basic principles of a competence description method based on semidirected on-site interviews and developed by Céreq (the French Centre for Research on Education, Training and Employment). This question of one or several possible models to follow while describing competencies is particularly relevant now, as ISO commissions and local organizations such as AFNOR in France attempt to find the best way to define and standardize competence descriptions.