Electronic portfolio as a tool in competency-based education - From barriers, obstacles and problems to solutions and implementation

The Hotel Management School Maastricht trains students to be competent professionals in the hospitality industry. A competent professional knows how to use his knowledge and skills in a manner that enables him to achieve his goal. In order for us to produce professionally competent students, we introduce them at an early stage of the programme to the kind of practical situations in which they will be asked to display their competence after they graduate. This brief introduction makes it clear to them immediately that they need more than knowledge and skills alone to function competently or successfully in a professional context. They also have to be able to demonstrate their "know-how ", and do so before they graduate. In other words, students are required to show throughout the programme that they have mastered the required competencies at specified levels and at fixed points in time. To track their evolving knowledge and skills, guide the results and assess what they have achieved, we need other measurement tools in addition to cognitive examinations or skills tests. As competencies are also individual characteristics, it goes without saying that student guidance and assessment must be individually tailored as much as possible.