Competency-Based
Education (CBE)
A practical guide for any school or leader considering CBE.
Step-by-step, we’ll show you how we recommend developing and implementing a
program.
C B E

Benefits of CBE
Enrollment
Competitive
Advantage
Student
Retention &
Completion
Rates
Employability &
Job Placement
Student Success
& Loan
Repayment

A Phased Approach to CBE
 Phase I: Competency-Based Learning (CBL)
 Credit awarded on the basis of seat time
 Phase II: CBE
 Decouple learning from seat time

Select Program
Blueprint
Competencies
Select Course-
Level Pilot
Train Faculty Assess Students
Mentor &
Evaluate
Outcomes
Implement
Complete Program
Mentor Students
& Faculty for
Success
Continuous
Improvement &
Quality
Assurance
Phase I: Step-by-Step Guide
to CBL Implementation

Select Program
Activities In Practice
 Select the program that will
benefit most from CBL
 Develop project
implementation plan for
selected program
 Form academic committee
Example school implemented the
following 4 programs in the past
year:
 Medical Assisting
 Medical Billing and Coding
 Criminal Justice
 Business Administration

Blueprint competencies
Activities In Practice
• Ensure that the program
curriculum aligns with
employer needs (outcomes
that matter)
• Identify relevant
competencies
 Employer-vetted
 Statements of doing and
applied learning - NOT
learning objectives
 Competency example from
Medical Assisting program:
“Demonstrate taking
temperature, pulse,
respiration, and blood
pressure.”
 Utilized database of
Wonderlic’s employer-vetted
competencies
 Discovered that Medical
Assistant courses were missing
about 25% of competencies
that were important to
employers

Pilot the First Course
Activities In Practice
 Select course for CBL pilot
 Academic committee
develops learning objectives
that align with competencies
 Academic committee adapts
course syllabus
 Academic committee
identifies learning resources
that align with competencies
 Medical Terminology
 50 students
 3 campuses

Train Faculty
Activities In Practice
 Train faculty to:
 Deliver instruction within the
CBL model
 Mentor students
 Develop infrastructure for
accreditation requirements
 Provided professional
development workshops
 Involved accreditors early

Assess Students for Mastery
of Competencies
Activities In Practice
 Develop internally or acquire
from third party
 Must be valid, relevant and
reliable
 May include examinations,
projects, presentations,
portfolios, etc.
 Partnered with Wonderlic
 Empirically demonstrated
validity and reliability
 Delivered employer-weighted
results

Sample Competency Assessment
Question – Medical Assisting
Competency measured: Demonstrate taking
temperature, pulse, respiration, and blood pressure.

Sample Employer-Weighted
Scoring – Medical Billing & Coding

Test Performance

Evaluate Student Outcomes
Activities In Practice
Medical Terminology - Competencies and
Average Score by Enabling Objective
Competency: Basic
Terminology
N Average
Define homeostasis and its
importance to the human
body
112 78%
Describe body planes,
cavities, regions, and
directional terms
112 60%
Outline the levels of
organization of the body,
including the body systems
112 45%
• Train faculty, mentors and
advisors to use individual
student results to remediate as
necessary
• Identify learning gaps and
determine how to close the
gaps
• Link assessment results to
learning resources
• Adjust program as necessary,
determine to proceed with full
program deployment or seek
alternatives to CBL
• Satisfy CBL accreditation
requirements to measure,
collect and demonstrate
student outcomes

Mentor & Evaluate Outcomes
Activities In Practice
 Create student-centered
processes
 Develop tools to foster
student motivation &
confidence
 Validate skills that are most
important to employers
 Utilized reports that indicate
each individual’s learning
gaps
 Provided students with
targeted online resources to
enhance classroom learning
 Mentors provided students
with targeted remediation

Assessment Linked to
Learning
Define and spell common terms
related to the nervous system.

Implement Complete Program
Activities In Practice
 Makes changes per course
pilot findings
 Develop project plan and
timeline
 Train enrollment and
admissions staff
 Ensure that your program is
designed to meet the
requirements of CBL
accreditation
 Started development in early
2013
 Launched full implementation
in January 2014
 Maintains on-going faculty
professional development

Continuous Improvement &
Quality Assurance
Activities In Practice
 Quality Improvement: Review
data and use to improve
program quality and
consistency of instruction
 Identify learning and
performance gaps to make
changes to curriculum and
instruction
 Demonstrate continuous
improvement and outline
effectiveness plans to satisfy
accreditation requirements
 Holds quarterly meetings with
faculty to evaluate aggregate
assessment results
 Identifies competencies and
outcomes that need
improvement
 Mentors faculty and identifies
dynamic learning resources to
close learning gaps

Top Implementation
Challenges
 Identifying, selecting and defining competencies
 Need for many Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
 Creating relevant, accurate assessment for all competencies
 Gathering employer input regarding competencies that matter
 Common language – employers can’t easily interpret curricula
 Time consuming – need to collect enough input to validate trends
 Obtaining instructor buy-in
 Instructors’ fear of punitive use of results
 Instructors’ confidence that curriculum aligns with direct
assessment
 Determining scoring and how to transcript

Phase II: Move from CBL to
Competency-Based Education
(CBE)
 Step 1: Determine how to manage time and
credit/competencies
 Step 2: Apply to Accrediting Agency to obtain
CBE Program Accreditation
 Step 3: Approval from Accreditor will allow
application to the Department of Education

Summary
After just one year of CBL (Phase I) implementation our example school
achieved the following results:
 Enrollment improvement – increased lead conversion by over 20%
 Retention improvement - reduced average monthly drop rate by
25%
 Student performance improvement – 5% increase in standardized
test scores
 Improved employer satisfaction – one local employer paid to send
60 Medical Assistants to this school

For more information, please
contact:
Dr. Larry Banks
Director of Competency-Based Education
Wonderlic, Inc
larry.banks@wonderlic.com
Join our discussion group on Linkedin to learn from
others who have already implemented CBE:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=6784212
&trk=anet_ug_hm