1.1 Study Background
Micro-credentials have gained more and more attention around the world in recent years. Especially since the outbreak of COVID-19, governments are looking for and working hard to create new jobs so people can get back to work. Changing societal needs are also driving growing interest in short-term learning experiences, like micro credentials (Brown, Mhichil, Beirne and Lochlainn 2021). In addition, the growing development and popularity of digital education has also contributed to the growth of micro-credential learning. Students can obtain knowledge efficiently through the Internet remotely. At the same time, diversity in the student body continues to be a major challenge for higher education (Bradley et al., 2009). For example, many students are “first” in their families to attend college; students may be part-time, or caring for others (Kift et al., 2010); students have greater expectations of being able to learn technology in college (Dvoretskaya et al., 2018). Faced with these diverse student populations, institutions are taking series different measures of innovation to restructure and modify courses, including experimenting with technological features (Jeong & Hmelo-Silver, 2016). While there have long been calls for these changes, arguably, the COVID-19 pandemic has indeed provided further spurs for universities to research and advance these new ideas (Preston et al., 2010). One such initiative is the research and development of micro-credentials, which can be integrated directly into a terminal degree program or as a stand-alone course (Ehlers, 2018). As more and more people question the purpose and relevance of traditional qualifications to personal work and social development, so whether these qualifications can prepare learners well for today's rapidly changing digital society deserves in-depth research and discussion (Brown, Mhichil, Beirne and Lochlainn 2021). Several examples of micro-credentialing programs have emerged globally in recent years as different interest groups and stakeholders continue to explore new avenues for providing lifelong learning and upskilling in response to the rapidly changing nature of work. And based on this situation, I would like to investigate the following research question in this paper:
To better explore research questions, we first need to understand the meaning of holistic competency. Many literatures use many different terms to define a person's capabilities, such as 21st century skills, employment skills, generic competencies, soft skills, and transferable skills. Dr. Chan’s team believe that as the world develops, new capabilities will develop and become more important, but the relationship between capabilities are interrelated. Overall competence may eventually extend to a sense of work ethic and attitude towards lifelong learning (Chan, 2021). Therefore, Dr. Chan and her team adopted the term “holistic competence” as it better highlights the significance of lifelong abilities necessary for personal growth, family, career, society, and themselves. Holistic competence encompasses diverse generic skills (e.g., information literacy, critical thinking, global competence, and communication skills) and positive values such as professional ethics and lifelong learning, all of which are vital for the comprehensive development of every student.
However, due to its subjective nature, the assessment of overall ability does have certain challenges. But Dr. Chan believes that active research and development of some form of assessment is crucial in the context of improving student capabilities and promoting higher education. Although assessment methods are likely to differ significantly from traditional methods, teachers should be open to new assessment methods (Chan, 2021). Whether micro-credentials have important development significance for the higher education industry and whether they should be fully promoted, it is also necessary to explore whether it has a positive impact on the overall ability of students. Any form of education should focus on the ability of students to improve their self-worth. After deeply research and literature review, a suitable methodology will be conducted to explore the impact of Micro-credentialing on holistic competency.