We currently witness an increase in the currency of educational phrases involving ``competence``, which translates into requests for curriculum reform suitable for our next generation. As is often noted, such requests in fact emphasize non-cognitive c...
We currently witness an increase in the currency of educational phrases involving ``competence``, which translates into requests for curriculum reform suitable for our next generation. As is often noted, such requests in fact emphasize non-cognitive competences such as social skills, personal attitudes and ethical behaviors as the essential contents of our new curriculum. In spite of the currently high volume of scholarly works on competence-based curriculum reform that usually stresses learning and teaching of non-cognitive competences, however, it is not clear what the relationship we can draw between cognitive and non-cognitive competences. As the relation between the two can clarify the specific strategies of reforming the current curriculum, it is crucial for us to examine the types of such relations. Certain philosophical traditions have advocated a positive relation between the two, whereas certain cognitive psychological theories have it denied. And a recent comparative international survey shows that the case is more complicated than such an advocacy-denial dichotomy and that the relation could be diversely set up based upon cultural and social contexts. Thus, competence-based curriculum reform requires further analyses of the relations between cognitive and non-cognitive competences in each subject matter, which have been specifically formed in our cultural and social context.