Competence Development in Higher Education: Developmental Pedagogical Considerations by Heinrich Roth and Empirical Findings

Abstract

Heinrich Roth (1906-1983) is considered as the founder of a specific empirical pedagogy in which socialization, learning and development processes are initiated in educational institutions in such a way as to allow children and young people to independently acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes. The ultimate objective of these processes is the development of a competent and responsible (capable of judgement and decision-making) personality. According to Roth (1971) the educational objective of “maturity” is achieved through a combination of professional, social and personal competences. In a study by Frey and Ruppert (2020) the question was pursued as to whether Roth’s competence model can be represented in students at the end of their last internships i.e. shortly before the end of their studies in counselling sciences. A total of 452 students were surveyed at the end of their last internships in 2017-2020. 76% of the students were female and their average age was 24.8 years. They were “satisfied” with their studies at the university, “rather satisfied” with their last internships, and they rated their career prospects as “very good”. The results show that the modified competence model according to Roth was best replicated in the highly competent students with one correlation and three connecting lines. For the moderately competent students, the model could be replicated with one correlation and two connecting lines. It was only for the less competent students that a strongly modified model was observed in which self-competence plays a central role. With three connecting lines Roth’s model is very fragile and does not correspond to his claim that professional knowledge is the starting point of competence development processes and maturity its objective. It is particularly with regard to students who consider themselves to be moderately competent or lowly competent that the critical question of Higher Education didactics must be investigated in order to determine which concepts are best suited for the development of action competence.