What does it mean to conduct research into qualifications frameworks?

Abstract

This paper engages with an extensive body of research by David Raffe to explore what it means to say that a qualifications framework ‘works’, in light of the limited evidence to support the claims made about this popular policy phenomenon. The framework regarded as the most successful, the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework, is of limited value in thinking about frameworks in general, as it is deeply embedded in institutions and a series of educational reforms in that country. Typologies of qualifications frameworks provide insights in theorizing and researching qualifications frameworks. An analysis of this literature suggests that attempts to theorize frameworks were useful for an initial range of studies, but have reached the limit of their usefulness. They run the risk of being concept-heavy, when there is almost no empirical data for researchers to analyse. The paper suggests, drawing again on Raffe’s work, that qualifications frameworks could be of interest in studying the changing relationships between knowledge, qualifications, and work in different countries, but only if attention is paid to context and the ways in which the apparent problems of the qualifications derive not from the qualifications themselves but are primarily the products of their context.

Keywords:

• National qualifications frameworks
• typologies
• education and work