The Drum Beat 183 - Mapping Communication Competencies

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In The Drum Beat #113: Communication Competencies, we requested your participation in a survey that was part of an effort to help define competencies for practitioners of Communication for Development/Social Change. This is a follow-up issue, based on the report that provides further background information and summarises the full process, outcomes and suggested way forward.

The report and presentations from the conference can be viewed online.

The full report with all appendices can be downloaded as a PDF document.

Please also click on the links provided below for further information.

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Mapping Competencies for Communication for Development and Social Change: Turning Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes Into Action

Communication for Social Change is a process of public and private dialogue in which people themselves define who they are, what they want and need, and how to attain what they need to better their lives. Change is defined as the people themselves define it.

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"How does Communication for Development and Social Change happen? What does a communicator need to know and what should a communicator be able to do to be competent and successful? What do universities and training programmes need to teach so that professionals in the field of Communication for Development and Social Change know and can use these competencies?"

- from the Preface

"In the early 1970s, Harvard psychologist David McClelland first suggested the importance of testing for competency rather than intelligence. Subsequently, competency models have been used worldwide to define superior performance in academia, organisations and manufacturing...." A competence is observable and measurable. A competence relates specifically to knowledge, skills and attitudes of successful job performance. In education, competencies clarify expectations, define future professional needs, and focus on curriculum, course design, and performance.

"In 2000 and 2001, representatives from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and USAID's CHANGE Project (AED & the Manoff Group, Inc.) discussed the utility of applying competency models to the field of Communication for Development and Social Change.... These organisations invited leading experts from around the world to a conference in Bellagio, Italy, to identify competencies...and begin the process of using competencies in curriculum development and design. The conference...had 4 objectives. Significant progress was made in meeting each objective:

• Define competencies for Communication for Development & Social Change.
• Define knowledge and performance evidence for each competence.
• Review how a competency-based approach is used in curriculum design and delivery methods.
• Decide on future steps for further consultation and dissemination of competencies and to complete the curriculum design."

- from the Introduction

THE CONTEXT: Understanding a Competency-Based Approach

"Competence is about turning knowledge into action.... Implicit in [the definition of competence]...is that superior performance in a job is based on applying knowledge, skills, and attitudes in an ever-changing environment."

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"In the competency approach, competencies are identified, standardised, assessed, and certified.

• Identification: This process establishes or defines the competencies needed to perform a work activity satisfactorily.
• Standardisation: The process of generalising a competence and turning it into a competence standard. A standard is a competence that becomes a valid reference for a given group of workers or organisations.
• Assessment: The process of collecting evidence of a worker’s performance to judge competence against a standard and to identify performance areas that need to be strengthened, modified, or improved.
• Certification: The process of formal recognition of competence demonstrating that the worker can perform a standardised labor activity."

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"Two...important processes...ensue from the development of competencies:

• Competence-based Training: The process of designing and developing training based on a competency.
• Competence-based Human Resource Management: The process of linking competencies to all phases of management of human resources, including selection of employees, work organisation and flow, training and development, working conditions, salary and benefits, evaluation, and promotion."

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THE CONFERENCE: Toward the Definition of Competencies for Communication for Development & Social Change

To move from the general discussion on competencies to defining them for Communication for Development & Social Change, the Conference organisers asked several participants to prepare background papers. These included:

1. Peru & Competencies: A Work in Progress
   
   María Angélica Borneck, of USAID/Peru, and Silvio Waisbord, a Rutgers University consultant to the CHANGE Project (now team leader of CHANGE’s capacity building unit), discussed a "work in progress" in Peru.
2. Skills, Knowledge & Attitudes: Consensus from the Field
   
   Dana Faulkner, of the CHANGE Project, reviewed the results of a Delphi survey conducted by CHANGE and the Communication Initiative (CI) via the CI Web site in 2001. The survey was not intended to provide concrete quantitative inputs to define competencies. Instead, its purpose was to provide a starting point for the Bellagio discussions by capturing a range of input from practitioners in the field. More than 300 people responded in each round...
3. Communications Curricula: What’s Happening Now
   
   • Training & Education Curricula & Programmes in Communication for Development & Social Change: An Overview
     
     Jim Hunt reported that few programmes exist that are specifically called "communication for development and social change," although the relevant content appears in some training programmes and within departments of communications, health, agriculture, and other disciplines. "... people receive training and education at many levels in many ways. Academic institutions worldwide do this work, often in schools of health, agriculture, education, the environment or some other focused discipline... Other programmes are housed in departments of journalism, mass communication, telecommunications... A great deal of training is done by the UN, NGO’s, some community-based organisations, and a small group of international consultants."
   • Training Opportunities in Communication for Development & Social Change: An overview of the situation in Latin America
     
     Alfonso Gumucio Dagron noted that the "new communicator" learns from experience and most often needs to teach him/her self. Most university communications programmes focus on journalism. Mr. Gumucio points out that there are more than 500 "Social Communication" (journalism) Faculties in Latin America, but that most of these have a standard curricula and a mass media focus. Only 5 or 6 have incorporated communication for development studies, the contents of their curricula vary and it is difficult to find experienced professors. Nonetheless, he summarised how 5 universities are incorporating communication for development in their offerings. Interestingly, the few places where he found development communication studies were related to faculties of agriculture, philosophy, nutrition, and the arts, instead of faculties of journalism.
4. Future Trends
   
   Dana Faulkner presented what she called "informed speculation" on future trends that might affect the competencies needed by a communicator for development and social change. These trends covered the areas of technology, funding, philosophy, politics, culture, and commerce. "The intent... [was] not to put forward an integrated set of future scenarios but to serve as a springboard for discussion and to stimulate the assembled conferees to consider, debate, and explore among themselves the future dimensions of their conference task: that of formulating the competencies needed for the training of practitioners in communication for development and social change."

"The Bellagio participants spent [the rest] of the Conference conducting a functional analysis of Communication for Development & Social Change. The product of this...analysis is a Functional Map that defines the Key Purpose of an occupation or field, its Key Functions, the Units of Competence that are needed to perform the Key Functions, and Elements of Competence that make up the Units of Competence and are disaggregated to the point of a task or activity."

THE FUNCTIONAL MAP

The full Map can be viewed as a PDF document.

"As shown on the Functional Map, the Key Purpose of Communication for Development & Social Change is:

Use communication to facilitate efforts by people to achieve sustainable improvements in individual and collective well-being.

The Key Functions are

• Enable/facilitate dialogue with and within communities to support sustainable policy and decision-making processes and set feasible goals that would require the contribution of communication approaches.
• Use communication strategies, methods and resources to achieve current goals and build capacity to address future development problems and social change issues."

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WHAT'S NEXT

"The Functional Map of Competencies for the field of Communication for Development & Social Change is intended as a starting point for discussion by communicators and by the range of partners who work with them. The goal of this report...is to submit this map to practitioners and academics in the field for review, discussion, and refinement so that it can serve as a tool for competency-based standards in education, training, and human resources management in the field."

It was agreed that each element of competence needs to be analysed to determine:

• Performance criteria - the result that determines a worker’s performance and therefore her or his competence.
• Performance evidence - how the worker shows she or he has met the criteria.
• Range of application - the different types of circumstances in which the worker demonstrates the competency.
• Knowledge evidence - the principles, theories, or methods that the worker needs to know to achieve the action described in the element of competence.
• Guidelines for assessment - how others can assess whether and to what degree the element has been achieved.

Other suggested actions included:

• Discussion with others who are in the process of developing curricula and training programmes in the field.
• Application of the competencies approach in the workplace.
• Creation of a "community of practice," in which participants provide input, review, and support each other on issues that arise related to competencies for Communication for Development & Social Change.

In Nov 2002, the CHANGE Project and PAHO convened in Ica, Peru to discuss lessons learned in recent experiences in health communication in Latin America, review existing capacity-building resources and needs, develop competencies-based curricula, and propose ideas to institutionalise health communication programmes in universities and other organisations.

A total of 53 academics, Ministry of Health personnel, and NGO staff from Peru and Latin America participated in the meeting. During the first 2 days, there were plenary sessions featuring presentations about health communication experiences and training resources in the region. During the last 3 days, participants worked on a map of competencies and competencies-based curricula. After deciding on key functions for health communication professionals, participants were divided in groups to develop a map of competencies for 5 groups of professionals: health promoters, nurses, government health officers, and Master's programmes in public health and in communication.

Currently, the CHANGE Project is working with the Consortium of Universities in Peru to refine the competencies-based curricula developed at the Ica meeting, and implement them in a series of educational and communication activities in partnership with a number of Peruvian universities and organisations. For further information, please contact Silvio Waisbord swaisbor@aed.org

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