Editorial for JCBE

This JCBE issue is the fourth and final issue in Volume 5 and closes out 2020. I want to thank everyone for their continued support of the journal during this unprecedented year of a global pandemic. I wish all good things to our authors, reviewers, associate editors, editorial board, publisher, and readers in 2021!

This issue has five articles, a book review, and a special editorial that represent a broad range of insights into Competency-Based Education (CBE) and Learning (CBL) from diverse perspectives, methods, and settings. The first manuscript, Making sense of K-12 competency-based education: A systematic literature review of implementation and outcomes research from 2000 to 2019, comes from Dr. Carla Evans and her colleagues at the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment. The article presents barriers and facilitators to outcomes, all of which were mixed. As a result, the authors suggest that the field should coalesce around a continuum of CBE practices. As an aside, there are a number of excellent tables that synthesize the studies the authors reviewed, the factors that affect CBE implementation, and the impact of CBE elements on outcomes which are solid resources for all of us interested in CBE.

Comparing goals to outcomes for graduates of a competency-based education program comes to JCBE from Dr. Michelle Navarre Cleary at College Unbound. The author explores preprogram goals identified in the areas of personal, professional, and community, or social, goals and compares them with the graduates’ reported outcomes. The results underscore the value of competency-based education in achieving personal and professional goals. Details of the methodology and inclusion of the survey offer opportunities for replication in diverse contexts.

Drs. Melissa Bowman Foster and Christopher Jones at Winston-Salem State University explore the effects of delivery methods on the development of competency levels in their manuscript, The effects of competency-based education delivery methods on competency level: A quantitative study. Focused on the developing competency levels of 15 graduate students in a Masters of Healthcare Administration (MHA) program, their manuscript suggests that CBE delivery models are effective in supporting increased levels of competency.

An editorial by Mr. Ben Mayfield of Western Governors University serves as a section break between the research presented in the previous three articles and the original research, case study, and book review that follow. Aligning postsecondary institutions to external standards with relational databases is a technical piece with practical applications. CBE institutions, often queried about how competencies and standards are related, will find ample information to “make their case” and answer curricular and other queries with the database example that Mr. Mayfield provides.

Competency-based learning (CBL): Developing a competency-based geometry methods course by Drs. Lee and Pant illuminates how CBL is being implemented in geometry methods. Their focus adds to the professional knowledge base about CBE/CBL design, assessment, and evaluation and how it can be implemented at the course level to good effect.

A case study by Dr. Daniel Friedrich at the University of Heidelberg rounds out the studies in this issue with a new perspective. Effectiveness of class peer review under varied multiple review designs: A teaching method with homeschooling format highlights an aspect of JCBE’s scope that is rarely included, the JCBE subtitle of Innovative practices, policies, and structures on learning sciences and outcomes. Implementing a variety of methods for peer review of a business management essay, Dr. Friedrich proposes hypotheses about subject matter knowledge acquisition, self-assessed competency, autonomy, social involvement, learning, and so on. The work has implications for online CBE and for the integration of peer review as a teaching innovation developing students’ competency.

Wrapping up this issue Dr. Thomas Gauthier reviews the Hoffman and Collins (Eds.) edited book (2020) entitled Teaching Students about the World of Work: A challenge to postsecondary educators. Focused on his perspectives on the need for colleges to be more work- and employer-infused, Gauthier’s review sets the stage for the special issue of JCBE to be published in March 2021: The Future of Learning and Work.

My hope is that these manuscripts contribute to the global conversation about CBE. We have much to learn from each other, many stories to tell of the work we are doing, and many examples of new work that can enhance teaching and learning everywhere. To Volume 6 in 2021 and beyond!