Study On The Qualification Framework Based On Body Of Knowledge

In the context of accelerating knowledge economy and rapid development of technology, knowledge and intellectuals have become the most critical resources of contemporary world. As the interaction between education and vocation has been strengthened in the current society, the movements of education quality assurance and mutual recognition of educational and professional qualification around the world give rise to the emergence of multiple qualification frameworks. Therefore, quality assurance and international mobility of engineers have become research hotspots in the community of engineering education. Explorations have been launched in many countries/regions and profession fields, focusing on constructing appropriate qualification framework to support the engineering education quality assurance and promotion of engineering talent mobility via both research and practice. With the fore cited research background, the research issues identified in this study focus on:1) the system structure of qualification framework; 2) mode development analysis of existing qualification framework; 3) the roadmap of engineer qualification framework in China. In addition, this thesis also provides countermeasures and suggestions for the design of engineer qualification framework in China.This thesis probes into the development and configuration of the Body of Knowledge based qualification framework in 7 chapters.Chapter 1 "Introduction" proposes and defines the research topics and approaches. Chapter 2 "literature review" bases on the theories of knowledge, quality assurance and public policy regulation, identifying the elements of conceptions for the following chapters. Chapter 3 analyzes the qualification framework in a systemic approach, which is from the environmental perspective, the macro perspective, the functional perspective, the micro perspective and process perspective to discuss the elements and structure of qualification framework, providing framework basis for qualification framework pattern analysis and empirical research in following chapters. Chapter 4 "the qualification pattern analysis" starts from the integration of five systemic approaches and then classifies the patterns of existing qualification frameworks based on relevant literature review and Citespace knowledge map. Therefore case studies are performed in this chapter for each pattern, summarizing successful experience in constructing qualification framework, quality assurance and promoting lifelong learning in the whole society. In Chapter 5 an empirical study was carried out to analyze the critical elements that represent the Body of Knowledge and the contents of learning outcomes of typical qualification framework, extracting 45 most frequent components of the core learning outcome content from 72 learning outcomes,14 aspects of the 4 dimensions which are "knowledge", "problem-solving", "skills", and "attitudes" as the key Body of Knowledge for the foundation of qualification framework. Preliminary conclusion is drawn from the statistical results in this chapter. Chapter 6 draws up the roadmap for the vision of future qualification framework, and provides conceptual model for engineer qualification framework in China and corresponding policy suggestions.The main original contributions of this study are as the following:To start with, in the context of global lifelong learning atmosphere, international mutual recognition and mobility of engineering and technology intellectuals, the launching and development of qualification framework is of morphological diversions; however, the elements of the framework shares characteristics of consistency. Due to the geographic and historical restrictions, the emergence and development of qualification framework is of diversification though; the similarity in terms of structure is still remarkable. Examples are authorized qualification frameworks, clear path of learning and profession and the overlapping of learning outcome desriptors. Among them, the descriptors of learning outcomes are the specific expression of the Body of Knowledge.Moreover, the establishment of qualification framework is a dynamic and systemic process, constrained by certain stakeholders. The thesis categorizes existing qualification framework into 4 patterns via educational-vocational and general-professional dimensions. These patterns are general education qualification framework, general vocation qualification framework, engineering education qualification framework and professional engineer qualification framework. With the 4 patterns the Body of Knowledge are expressed from different focuses and tendencies. The most frequent learning outcomes from different qualification framework can be the Body of knowledge basis for establishing future qualification framework. However, such basis is subjected to constant upgrading in a developing process.Thirdly, this thesis argues that the establishment and application of our engineer qualification framework can be based on foreign experience, which includes establishing unified authority, plenty corresponding measures and infrastructure to support national qualification framework. The founding of China's engineer qualification framework can adopt the international strategy, in which the boundary of existing qualification framework is merged; the universality and particularity of qualification frameworks are combined to promote the vertical and lateral mobility of intellectuals in the society. As a result, the academic communication and technology innovation is accelerated to boost society and economic development and stimulate knowledge network effects of qualification framework simultaneously.