Abstract
The concept of competence is not only a perennial issue in the discussion of media education. In recent years, it has been intensively discussed in educational science in general and made practically fruitful as a concept. In particular, the discourse has developed in two directions:In the context of discussions on educational standards, the reference to competency models has become a central aspect of the discourse on educational planning and school development. According to Klieme et al. (2003, p. 9), competency models concretise the contents and levels of general education; thus they take on a central significance for the construction and legitimisation problems of the current education and curriculum debates.Likewise, the concept of competency has recently been intensively addressed within adult education. The competence discourse replaces the discussion on "key qualifications" and emphasises lifelong learning and the related need to self-regulate life. Erpenbeck/von Rosenstiel (2003, p. XIX) define competencies as "self-organisation dispositions"; they are dispositions, readiness, abilities to act in a self-organised and creative way and to deal with fuzzy or missing goals. The authors distinguish competences from "qualifications" in their handbook on competence measurement and state: "This is the decisive difference to qualifications: These do not become visible only in self-organised action, but in test situations that are separated from it, that can be standardised and worked through position by position. The certifiable results reflect the current knowledge, the currently available skills. Whether someone will be able to act in a self-organised and creative way on this basis can hardly be determined by the standardisations and certifications. A "trained" multimedia designer with the best final grades simply cannot come up with anything in practice. According to this, qualifications are positions of an as it were mechanically demanded examination action, are knowledge and skill positions" (Erpenbeck/von Rosenstiel 2003, XI).
