Values and Competency Standards

Abstract This paper discusses the capacity of competency standards of an integrated kind to incorporate the values and attitudes that are crucial to the effective performance of many occupations. It is argued that far from being a limitation, competency standards that conceptualise work in terms of key human actions, together with the attributes which in various combinations contribute to such actions, are able to cater better for values and attitudes than available alternatives. The experience of two occupations in Australia employing the integrated approach to standards development, and thereby incorporating values and attitudes, provides examples of these claims.