The Meanings of Qualifications

Ross Woods

A qualification (or degree) needs to be more than simply coherent; it needs a recognizable identity and a valid, credible knowledge base. For present purposes, a degree is an academic award or credential of any level or kind, not only a university-level graduation credential. Spurr (1970:3) mentions both the general and specific meanings, with the latter usually differentiating between degree and non-degree programs, sometimes arbitrarily. The general meaning is more suited to an accreditation context.

The meaning of a degree is an arbitrary convention, standardized within a region or community to avoid misunderstanding; it has no absolute meaning. North American and British degree definitions usually differ, and other countries also have their own. It is ethnocentric and paternalistic to define all degrees in terms of a single Western country.

The task of defining degrees is not easy; they are like the proverbial moving gray shapes in the twilight. Many fluctuating variables make it very difficult to define degrees precisely, and the system of classifications below have many indistinct edges, reflecting the vagaries of real programs and the influences acting upon them.

First, the value-added effect means that different schools could not have completely uniform degree meanings even if they wanted. Not only that, each school has its own unique degree programs; there is no such thing as a degree apart from the school that awards it. Hartnett notes that this prevents degree meanings from being uniform (pp. 30ff) with both student and staff populations of widely varying ability.

Even more specifically, each student has a different degree because the degree comprises two parts: the degree status itself and the grades on the transcript. The latter, which largely determines whether a student may continue to a higher degree program, usually differs from student to student. ( Cf. Spurr, 1970:7) This is important in comparing two students from the same school, one getting very high grades but not quite enough to graduate, and the other with all low grades but finishing the degree. (Hartnett, 1972:28f; Warren, 1974:126)

Furthermore, degrees can change meaning over time, both in each school and throughout a region, sometimes even reflecting changed concepts of the goals of higher education. Drastic changes in North American undergraduate education have left its Bachelor's degree inadequately defined; the old meaning, based on the residential college tradition, is being completely revised. (Young, 1983b:400) It is not yet clear what sort of consensus will arise, if at all. Degree meanings can be even more problematical in countries without stable traditions of higher education.

Degree meanings are subject to upwards and downwards pressures. Some schools aspire to be elite and exclusive while others follow market pressure in making degrees more accessible to students of average ability. Even within the same institution, some departments can be elite with small enrolments of carefully-selected students while others have very large populations of average students. Schools naturally tend to be more demanding in their highest degree program no matter what level it is, and some schools have a "consolation prize" degree for otherwise failing students.

The clearest example of this problem is the Master's degree. According to Spurr, many schools with strong doctoral programs have weak Master's programs. The Master of Philosophy is sometimes even awarded as a consolation prize to students who have failed the Doctor of Philosophy. (1970:24, 67, 170) Dressel notes that some North American Master's degrees are available by credit accumulation alone, in contrast to schools which offer the Master's degree as their highest degree and maintain much higher standards. (1976:320) Bear goes so far as to suggest that the Master's degree is either a higher Bachelor's degree or a junior doctorate. (1980:15)

Institutions can try to rationalize the upper limits of a program into higher degrees. For example, what was once a senior Bachelor's degree can become a junior Master's degree. (Ramsey, 1978:215; Sheridan, 1983:70) Prospective students want higher degrees (or actually the same knowledge and skills in a similar degree with a higher name) so the market puts pressure on the education system to make them more accessible.

Besides these variables, the task of defining degrees is made difficult by the range of degrees available. Any system of degree classifications must be able to include all sorts; for example, the tradesman who gets a certificate on passing a practical test, the undergraduate who wants to transfer credit, and the graduate degreeholder.

The Contribution of Spurr

It is quite difficult to discuss the meanings of degrees without referring to the work of Spurr (1970). He is exemplary in his willingness to understand sympathetically the differences between European and North American degree systems. Generally speaking, he tends to describe degrees in terms of years of full-time study, the role of examinations, the amount of specialization, the role of research, the professional-academic dichotomy, and the coursework-thesis dichotomy. While not sufficiently accurate for the present discussion on accreditation, his kind of degree descriptions were practical and adequate for his purposes at the time, although they easily become outdated.

At least some of his basic ideas are still highly applicable. His basic thesis was that the number of degree titles should be kept as low as possible, but unfortunately it had little lasting influence on North American education. He suggested that a single degree title should carry no undesirable connotations and provide the student with maximum future opportunity to study and work. To this end he suggested that degree titles (that is, excluding the student's grades on the transcript) should mark successful completion of a program of study without making implications on students' fitness to continue to further study. He also suggested that degrees should have interrelated structures so that students have maximum freedom to redirect their studies into other programs, and that kinds of institutions and degree programs be interwoven rather than be discrete units. (Pp. 22-27) In response, however, it might be added that some degrees (such as those awarded through pre-research and bridging programs) are specifically defined by readiness to continue to other programs.

Conceptions of Degrees

One of the simplest ways to interpret a particular program is to identify its conceptions of the degree, recognizing that in reality conceptions seldom occur as pure, mutually exclusive types. Some conceptions directly parallel types of schools and most include the ways in which they are taught, that is, their delivery systems. For example, two degrees with the same name can have very different meanings. A Bachelor of Divinity program requiring six years of coursework does not mean the same as others comprising a Bachelor of Theology and a major thesis, or a Bachelor of Theology and a guided reading program. Many schools combine various delivery systems, and the kind of knowledge and degree meaning shifts according to the particular blend.

The list below is not necessarily comprehensive but, except for several unsatisfactory conceptions, it illustrates how easily a nontraditional school could validly use them to create new kinds of degrees.

1. The testamur. The degree refers to the piece of paper which is awarded, not the person. This conception encourages the degree mill mentality and the empty typewriter syndrome, and is generally a danger to good education. (See e.g. Bear, 1980:146-173) It is not technically correct either; the diploma is not the degree but a written statement which attests to the degree. ( Cf. e.g. Spurr, 1970:3)

2. Years of study. The easiest way to say what a degree means is to say how many years of satisfactory full-time study it takes, and Hartnett almost gave up hope of assigning any other clear meanings to degrees. (Houle, 1973:127; Hartnett, 1972:30) This is simply to import the weaknesses and inaccuracies of the metric concept of quality.

3. Purely honorary degrees. Purely honorary degrees appear to fall into two categories. First, some have no academic value as they are given for services rendered to the school or to the community, or sometimes for money donated. Second, others are a mark of recognition of expertise especially for inventions, teaching, and some kinds of leadership, but they are not usually equivalent to earned degrees.
Honorary degrees usually have special designations. For example, the Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Letters degrees are honorary, in contrast to the Doctor of Theology and Doctor of Philosophy, which are earned. It is a source of confusion in North America that nomenclature does not differentiate between these two kinds or between them and higher assessment doctorates. It does not help that purely honorary degrees have been so readily available. (See Bear, 1980:146ff) The dangers of these kinds of degrees are readily apparent.

4. Qualitative change. The degree is a mark of qualitative change; the student has become a different kind of person. (Houle, 1973:127) This conception parallels the humanistic and cognitive models of curriculum. It is open to abuse when degreeholders lack an acceptable cognitive knowledge base.

5. Acculturation. The degree signifies acculturation into an identifiable community (Houle, 1973:128f), even though the student will likely leave it upon graduation. While still important in some schools, this degree conception needs some descriptors of a knowledge base, which it must import from other conceptions.

6. Passed assessments of knowledge. The degree shows that the student has passed assessment exercises showing adequate mastery of a predetermined body of knowledge; a school could not refuse a degree to a student who presented good work. This implies that education is a commodity and a degree is a label for how much of it one has. It also implies that the goal of education is the acquisition of cognitive knowledge and that schools can standardize levels of achievement.

It allows varied assessment styles. By favoring a hard view of objectives, assessment might be limited to a battery of objective tests, so that anyone who passes them gets a degree. Alternatively, a "softer" view of objectives might produce assessment which require students to be able to interact with a complex body of knowledge and to engage in analytical-critical thought.

This model encourages a view of the school as either an assessment program or an instructional institution. It has a past orientation; the degree certifies what has already passed and implies that degree-holders will leave the school after graduation. Concerning the future, it sometimes assumes that graduates will be able continue lifelong study at the highest level of achievement attained during the degree program. It has several variations:

1. A great deal of education comprises course work that produces degrees based on credit accumulation. A few have not many requirements other than credit totals, while most have a structure, comprising at least a major and a distinction between lower and upper levels. ( Cf. USNY, 1986)
   Course work is the type of knowledge most students want and need. Much of it aims to gives students an ability in a field of knowledge (such as a discipline, a subdiscipline, or a vocation) which is broader and shallower than that needed to carry out original research on a particular problem. It can teach at any level of the Bloom's taxonomy of objectives (discussed in a later chapter), but less often at the highest levels.
   The first and most well-known model of TEE is the Guatamalan, which uses workbooks and PI (Programmed Instruction) texts for course work. Another is practicum-centered academic studies, using field experiences as a basis for coursework. In other cases, tutors might oversee structured essay-writing programs, and extension schools might teach course work on campus for short, intensive periods between which students must carry out self-study tasks.
   In contrast, some other kinds of course work are especially intended to prepare student for original research. These include guided reading programs, tutored minor research, and specialist seminars. They are different from ordinary course work, both in purpose and level of difficulty. A whole degree comprising only one of these would in some cultures seem highly innovative, such as a short graduate degree consisting only of reading courses.
2. The degree is a license for professional practice. The best example is the unaccredited law school. The law degree is unrecognized, but graduates may legally practice as lawyers if they may take and pass the bar examination.
3. The degree is certification of training for employment purposes. In this extremely functionalist view, employers determine whether a program will be successful. It does not offer much to the non-applied sciences or to research, and it favors a harder view of educational objectives.

7. Research expertise. The degree is a mark of research expertise given on the basis of a significant work of research. Purely research degrees are best construed as having specific meanings and representing highly specialized education. It is rather prejudiced to say they are overspecialized, except perhaps when thesis topics do not enhance the student's subsequent employability. The point is to use research to show the highest level at which a student can perform and to produce concrete evidence that he has done so. The only way it shows breadth is by assuming that students need an adequate knowledge base to carry out research. These schools presume that someone with research-level thinking skills continue doing more research of the same standard.

Each school indicates the way it views the meaning of its degrees by the way it treats its thesis programs. One school might treat a large thesis as a course work subject and allocate a semester-hour rating, while another might just say that it is a major thesis with no semester hour rating. Each places a different value on both coursework and the thesis, and the meaning of the degree shifts accordingly. (See Laverty [1988] for a discussion on research in nontraditional education.)

Some extension programs belong to this category. A graduate degree program might consist of a major thesis or of a portfolio of smaller research works, which constitute a product. The school describes what it wants, often mentioning word totals and typically saying such things as "major contribution to a field of study", "significant original thought," "a scholarly work," and "literary merit." It still takes responsibility for coordination and supervision, but often liases with other institutions for library facilities. Some programs, usually practitioner higher degrees, emphasize applied studies which produce major writing projects. Institutes are "traditional" when they provide campus facilities and supervision, even when their students are based elsewhere doing field research. Institutes more easily attract the label of "nontraditional" when they are independent schools which do not provide on-site study facilities.

8. Transcript. A transcript acts as a degree when it circulates as an independent unit of currency, either as an academic reference or as a basis for transfer credit. This is especially the case where students take subjects without intending to finish the full degree program. ( Cf. Warren, 1974:120; USNY, 1986:23)

9. Election as a peer. The degree is election as a peer within an identifiable community of scholars on the basis of appropriate scholarly attitudes and abilities, usually as manifested in a particular piece of written work. The medieval universities very successfully used this definition for the Master's degree; the group of peers had a clear idea of what they expected. (Goodman, 1971:107) Having a diploma is unimportant because the degree is primarily an internal status which need not be recognized outside the school; consequently, it can be quite sensible for teaching staff to have their highest degree from their own school. In this view, a school might refuse a degree to a student who presented good work but who could not show that he was a peer. It implies that the group of academics control the granting of degrees and run it like a cartel. It also has a future orientation, implying that graduates will be active members of the institution after graduation.

10. Published research. Some assessment degrees are not coursework, and the degree has a quite different meaning. Some European-style institutions grant the higher earned "honorary" doctoral degrees on the basis of published research. (North American schools do not give it and usually give the Doctor of Philosophy as their highest degree.) The degree might be called "honorary" or "degree by supplication" but in either case it is equivalent to an earned research degree. Some schools require far more research than for ordinary earned research doctorates (e.g. Ph.D.), so that the supposedly "honorary" degree is in fact far academically superior and is recognized as such. In some cases, it is the normal way for academic staff to earn a doctorate if they join the teaching staff with lower qualifications. (Spurr, 1970:149, 157, 172f)

Knowledge Base

A cognitive knowledge base is essential to a degree. In a rather commonsense approach to the subject, Lane says that a degree program has three objectives, which do not always overlap. They are knowledge of a discipline, preparation for employment, and personal intellectual development. Most degrees have all three, but their proportions vary according to content. (1975:68f) HEC presents almost the same view, seeing degrees of all kinds and levels as comprising:

1. Generic and personal skills such as thinking, communicating, taking leadership, working with others, and desiring to learn and re-learn,
2. A body of knowledge as a discipline, and
3. Skills directly applicable to employment. (HEC, 1992:9f)

Compared to the goals of higher education, there seems to be much more consensus in the literature on the knowledge base represented in a degree.

In all cases except purely vocational education (where motor skills are often prominent), the cognitive element is and should be dominant. Too often the main purpose of the degree, and the student's main need, is to master a body of information. ( Cf. Freedman, 1987:69) This is not to say that it is narrow; it may follow a wide variety of curricular and degree models and reflect various kinds of thinking skills. Some degrees include only cognitive knowledge, like specialized, postprofessional programs. Some degree-granting assessment schools act as centers for branch schools, and choose to leave skill and attitude development to the branch schools as a non-credit activity. It is, however, possible to assess applied skills in an assessment program ( cf. USNY, 1986:19), or to delegate formal assessment to the school. If schools give assessment degrees in applied fields, they should also assess students' applied skills.

Lane does not mention attitudinal learning, despite his third element having an obvious personal aspect, but he correctly hints that skills and attitudes take a higher profile in some degrees than others. For example, human services programs spend a great deal of time teaching skills and attitudes, their basis in cognitive knowledge, and appropriate practicum.

Not all knowledge has a valid role in formal degree programs. Some nontraditional programs include hobby and recreation subjects for credit even though they add nothing to the academic value of the degree. ( Cf. Freedman, 1987:47) Others have emphasized affective knowledge so much at the expense of cognitive input that they cannot be considered valid; they are little more than group therapy. (Dressel, 1976:311; Raven, 1991:71f; Meyer, 1976:105)

Literacy Skills

Students need to be able to read and write at a standard appropriate to their degree. Hall includes advanced communication skills as necessary to a high-quality degree, including reading writing and language (1987:48f), and another included basic communication skills as necessary for entry to higher education. (College Board, 1983:7-10) It is more an explained axiom than a proven conclusion that a graduate should be able to read a book and understand what it says. Even then, as an example of the arbitrariness of the requirement, it is possible to omit literacy requirements altogether for vocational programs in some countries.

Not all TEE schools readily accept a literacy requirement. Part of the problem comes from a training mentality, which defines goals totally in terms of applied ability and minimizes academic skills. Another part of the problem is overdependence on small-step programmed instruction. Programs can be very weak in literacy skills when PI texts do not expect students to read more than a couple of paragraphs together. "Successful" students are ill-equipped to read. ( Cf . also Hill 1974:79)

Reading and writing are not teaching tasks but study tasks. Study is not the same as teaching; students can learn by studying resource materials without being taught. Western university teachers can easily assume that students are responsible to study rather than that teachers are responsible to teach. The distinction has some ramifications; it is worth differentiating between self-teaching and self-study materials, both of which have important roles. Only PI is fully self-teaching because the materials replace teachers and take the initiative in teaching. In doing so, PI takes away the student's responsibility to initiate his own study and enquiry. With self-study materials, the student must take initiative and the materials are relatively passive; they include any material that students can study alone. An ordinary book does not teach the student; he has to study it. Similarly, a student writing a paper has to think through issues himself, arrange the points of his discussion, and arrive at a conclusion.

For lower level students, "reading a book" means that they should voluntarily read and understand books commensurate with their educational level. A degree student should of his own initiative read and understand works of scholarship in his field of learning. Obviously the better traditional schools do everything reasonable to form reading skills in their students and consequently have a better record than TEE.

Student writing is another important dimension. Students must be able to make different kinds of formal and scholarly written responses according to their degree program. Undergraduates should be able to write a formal essay and, in some cases, a minor thesis. ( Cf . also Melinsky, 1983:302) Students in many Indonesian Bachelor of Theology programs formally present both a minor thesis and a project-like report of the major intensive practicum, which are very tangible evidence of the student's writing ability. The Council on Postsecondary Accreditation recommended that graduate students should produce some sort of "culminating effort" such as a thesis or major project. (1978, chap. II, p. 2) The principle applies for lower levels too. Many educators would expect a Diploma graduate to be able to write a formal essay. Lower-level students should be able to express themselves clearly and neatly in writing, such as in routine correspondence and written examination answers.

Library and Information Resources

The lack of libraries in many TEE degree-level programs has traditionally been a sore point when talking about program quality. Because campus programs often depend on a library, campus-oriented accreditors assume that libraries are essential to good education.

The first fallacy is that extension students never have libraries. Short-term campus residency programs can depend on library resources as much as any program can. Research institutes demand bibliographies equal to their campus counterparts, and institutes which do not own libraries need to take responsibility to ensure that students have access to them.

The second fallacy is that accreditors have thought enough about the role of libraries. Some still measure the value of a library simply by saying how many books they think it should have, perhaps including some library usage statistics and specifying that library holdings should be usable. Such standards say nothing directly about whether students should learn anything from library books; campus students can often survive without the library by mastering some well-chosen material which is adequate for written assignments. The assumption that having a library in itself is beneficial is not demonstrably true. The idea that a given number of books is adequate is certainly untrue; some programs do not fewer or none at all, while others need many times more than the minimum or need to monitor more carefully the kind of literature they hold.

The matter at stake, more precisely, is not at all the use of libraries but the kind of knowledge students are expected to get from them.

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Categories

Written information can be primary, secondary, or tertiary. Primary sources are the most valuable for research, being information as expressed by its original authors. Examples include monographs, journal articles, theses, and interviews. A secondary source is primary source information that someone has changed by translating, summarizing, or reviewing it. In tertiary sources, the original ideas have passed through several re-expressions; the most common examples are the explanations found in many textbooks. ( Cf. Anderson et al ., 1970:18) Another equally valid primary source, although nonliterary, is field research such as interviews and surveys.

The older PI literature strongly emphasized tertiary sources, usually meaning explanations written by the text author himself. Several beliefs caused this kind of thinking. They held that primary source literature was too wordy and its explanations were too vague. They had little regard for skill in handling literature and believed that students should not get exposure to information that they did not need to master. They aimed for students to be able to accomplish objectives, and selected information only as it helped accomplish them. ( E.g. Espich and Williams, 1967:22ff; Popham and Baker, 1970:47ff) More recently, Rowntree has defended the position on the grounds that distance education students easily become discouraged and confused by an oversupply of information for the recommended amount of study time. (1990:59; see also pp. 21, 60, 70, 79-84) This attitude to information produced some remarkably clear explanations and awareness of students' limitations, but it also blinded educators to kinds of resources.

From an accreditation perspective, the issue is that, by definition, the original form of knowledge is the primary sources. If students are to be competent in handling it, they need greater freedom than to deal with second-hand explanations and interpretations. Although Certificate and Diploma students do not need to be able to use secondary and primary sources, Bachelor students do, and Master's students need to be able to show considerable skill is using them.

Length and Complexity

Another dimension is the length and complexity of information. For present purposes, longer pieces of written communication are assumed to be more complex than shorter pieces, because students must sift through it and interpret it. This dimension is independent of the previous categories; a short quotation can contain primary material and some large libraries contain only tertiary resources.

The simplest form is information that teachers artificially limit so that students can understand it more easily. It can be a brief quotation or the simplest possible explanation in the teacher's own words, and assumes students will use all the information provided but none other. It is almost always tertiary.

A little more complex is the extended quotation of several pages or more, enough for the student to have to differentiate between what is pertinent and what is not. It can be either primary, secondary, or tertiary, and is well-suited to self-study materials.

More complex again is a limited supply , the level almost ideal for distance higher education and often well-suited to lecture-taught subjects on campus. Examples are easy to find almost anywhere in nontraditional and distance education. Students use anthologies of journal articles and sections of books, or several textbooks together, or required reading lists, or even guided reading programs. Like the research library, it tends to contain primary and secondary material; indeed, it often samples the best and most pertinent from the library and thus represents knowledge of a comparable type. Small libraries of carefully selected materials function at this level.

If resources are too meager or inconclusive, the extended quotation and the limited supply invite criticism that students really need a library to take the subject. The criticism is not necessarily justifiable.

The complex information resource reflects complex knowledge. The most common form of complex information in higher education is the large research library. The supply of information is as close to limitless as is practically possible, especially if it has an inter-library loan facility. In a few cases, a highly specialized library of primary sources might be very small if hardly anything has been written on its specialization, although the present tendency is to generate literature faster than it can be collected. Students must sharpen their skills in sifting and finding information. The information they use always includes a periphery of unmastered material, and they have the opportunity to find new paths through it. In this case, resources also represent the major authors and publications on the subject, as well as present literature, including topics, trends and progress in present research.

Another form of complex information is latent in society, awaiting field research. It can also be a body of professional experience. Field research is usually complex, primary information, but is not literary. Students can often advance directly from limited resources to field research without library support if the literature on the research topic is negligible and a review is unnecessary. (This is sometimes the case in contextualized studies.)

Much field research is technological. Being situation-specific, it is often poorly circulated and does not contribute to an identifiable body of scholarly literature. Moreover, research is often primarily done for the benefit of the student rather than a body of literature; it might be quite valid but it does not follow the academic curricular model.

Despite the importance of these categories, the differences between them are indistinct. Minimal and extended quotations do not greatly differ. A long collection of extended quotations becomes an anthology. Even the simplest piece of information has semantic components and is in a sense complex. While higher levels of student resources are usually better, this is not always so. A subject using many well-chosen long quotations from primary sources might be far superior to a poorly supervised subject that uses a good library.

Library-dependency

The inevitable question is whether or not a school can offer good education without being library-dependent. Some programs depend heavily on libraries, especially if they choose an academic curricular model, or are scientific rather than technological, or focus on content rather than functionality. For these, well-used and efficient libraries can justifiably become central to the program. "Products" are mostly essays, book reviews, reading projects, annotated bibliographies, bibliographic essays, or theses. On the other hand, schools that have libraries must ask whether they depend on the library. If students get all information resources through other means and do not need to use the library, then the library is not part of the program and is superfluous.

It is possible to overstate the value of libraries because they offer only marginal benefit for some kinds of subjects. For example, most self-instructional packages are completely self-contained. Some subjects can be academically equivalent using either limited information resources, field research, or a combination of different kinds of resources.

A means-ends analysis shows whether a library is necessary. Whether the school uses a library or not, it should ensure that students use information according to the program's aims in categories and taxonomic levels of knowledge. That is, it does not need a library if it can produce evidence of an equivalent product. If, however, the school teaches library-dependent subjects, it must ensure that the library is suitable. Even then, the issue is not whether the school owns the library but whether students have adequate access to it ( e.g. Scriven, 1983:252). When this is not practicable and the school needs its own library, then holdings and acquisition plans need to fit the purpose of the library, and the school needs a conscious policy on its use of resources.

Graduate students, however, often need libraries more than can be predicted. Bynner lists several ways to provide them, including electronic communications, postal libraries, libraries of local institutions, local public libraries, and specialized local lending points of central libraries. (Bynner, 1986:31f; see also Laverty, 1988:206ff)

In other words, some programs might be unaccreditable because their libraries are too weak; other very different types of program at the same level are quite accreditable with no libraries at all, and might find a library largely superfluous.

Terminality and Continuity

Degrees vary as to whether they are terminal, continuing to further study, or terminal with a bridging option. A terminal degree is designed without reference to the academic requirements of higher degrees. For example, a terminal Master of Arts program does not ensure that students have the research capability which would allow them to attempt a research doctorate. Similarly, some Certificate and Diploma programs do not create options for their graduates to continue to a Bachelor degree, regardless of ability. Spurr sees terminal degrees as an inferior breed because they imply that their graduates are unfit to continue study. (1970:25) Some compromise by providing an optional bridging course for students who want to continue to further study. In fact, it is almost always possible to devise bridging courses for programs which were designed to be terminal.

In contrast, programs like some Bachelor with honors degrees and some Master's degrees specifically equip graduates to continue study, whether or not they do so. A defining characteristic of some highly disciplinary Bachelor programs is the preparedness on its graduates for original research.

Professionalism

Another way to classify a program is to see how professional it is, because it reflects the kind of expertise graduates have. "Professional" means that a graduate has sufficient expertise to carry out the responsibilities of a given full-time professional position according to the type and level of his degree. It need not always mean that he is actually full-time. (For example, the standard for training a Sunday-School teacher to professional level is the standard for full-time ministry in children's evangelism or Christian education.) As used here, the term "professionalism" deliberately excludes any connotation that professionals should build elite empires by using their skills, prestige, and credentials.

Higher academic levels rather obviously must be either professional or postprofessional, but professionalism does not imply any particular minimum academic level. Programs for the newly literate might be highly professional if the students are already mature, competent leaders whom their community respects.

"Subprofessional" means that the average graduate could at best be only a helpful layman, because his training did not equip him for any more. He would have to develop extra skills to succeed as a full-time professional.

"Postprofessional" means that the student already has professional competency and wants to do further study in one or more specialized areas. For example, if a graduate of a professional Bachelor in Theology and a graduate of a professional Diploma in Theology program continued their study, they might apply to postprofessional Master of Ministry and B.Th. programs respectively. However, the professional B.Th. program would need to be different from the postprofessional B.Th.

Levels of professionalism might seem rather abstract but they refer to the roles into which graduates will fit. Consequently, they are useful for classifying programs and for showing program strengths and weaknesses, and are good criteria for making program decisions. For example, a program is weak if it has professional goals but only equips students to be lay assistants. A postprofessional program needs revision if it does not stretch graduates of professional programs.

The subprofessional program has several problems. Firstly, it invites unfair criticism as being inferior education; this is especially an image problem in nontraditional education. Secondly, it does not imply a minimum academic standard so in this sense accrediting it is more difficult. As a result, when subprofessional schools give credits that students can transfer to professional programs, they must carefully define their standards and goals, and explain what graduates would need to do to continue to professional education.

The University and Training Caricatures

Like its secular counterparts, the TEE movement spent considerable discussing the comparative virtues of the campus and extension models. The problem is better seen as two caricatures.

In the university caricature, educators form a community of scholars who seek enrichment by interacting directly with each other on campus, and indirectly with great scholars by means of a well-stocked research library. The model focusses on theoretical knowledge, conceiving its study to be truly a science with original research as its highest goal. In theological schools, students get relatively little training for professional ministry although most will become pastors. Programs actually aim to equip students for an academic career, and students, comfortable in their ivory towers, consider themselves superior to "workers" who have no skills in handling theory. They think of the church as the church catholic waging a philosophical war against the world, and tend to think of denominational strategy rather than real people. (This caricature may have once been more accurate than it is now, when knowing and doing were more separate. See Kamba, 1984:255f; Denielou, 1984:216)

The alternative to the university caricature is the training caricature. In industry, this is the functionalist extreme; education is no more than practical training to meet the present demands of the workplace. For example, theological education can conceive of theology as mainly skill which is proven only by being immediately practical and useful. It views the church as the basic community, meaning the local congregation, to which pastors should primarily relate and which they should develop by grassroots ministry. Graduates often lack a universal view of the church and its theological traditions, and have little preparation to participate at denominational level.

These two caricatures remain in tension. Unfortunately, it is possible to adopt them as models, along with their warped perspectives, and create opportunities for fruitless debate. The TEE literature has often used them, as is most clearly exemplified in several articles of fictitious correspondence complaining about the inadequacies of academic learning and the importance of practical and affective training. (Savage, 1976; McKinney, 1980; cf. also McKinney, n.d.:32)

It is a mistake to think that the former always parallels traditional campus education and that the latter is necessarily nontraditional and innovative. Campuses can easily follow the latter and an extension school can easily adopt the university caricature.

Some of the tension has been the fault of proponents of the training model. Relevance and flexibility are not convincing arguments against the university caricature. At the risk of overgeneralization, some of them adopt elements of the degree-mill philosophies or would like to eliminate the degree system altogether. The academic camp also has extremists. Even if they hold that attitudinal development is important, they would not spend for-credit class time on it, and they cannot see how education could be good without a full research library. They choose to be right but irrelevant, and they are quick to point out the faults of the extremists of the other camp. It does not help that the university caricature has sometimes impregnated the philosophy of accreditation, demanding academic degrees and research libraries.

In these terms, it is easier to see that the extremes of either viewpoint are equally unacceptable. It is better to revert to a more conservative and accurate model that does not unnecessarily imply conflict.

Scientists, Technologists, and Technicians

Academic study and practical training give an appearance of fitting together well but they create a fundamental methodological tension.

A simple way to solve the problem is to differentiate between scientists, technologists, and technicians; it follows that each classification can get appropriate accreditation. Etymologically, science is a body of theoretical knowledge and really more closely approximates what is now called pure science. Scriven describes this type of approach as the "quest for knowledge" model. It carries out "pure" research, which sometimes unintentionally produces quite practical results. (1986:56)

Technology refers to a body of applied science and it assumes that some kinds of practical skills require scientific knowledge and innovative ability. Scriven helpfully describes research in this type of knowledge as the "improvement of practice" model, saying that it aims to solve problems for practitioners. (1986:56f) Barnett et al. (1987) present a model of professional preparation, showing that different professions have different views of the roles of degrees, the relationships between academics and professionals, and the roles of theory and practice.

A technician is a person who can carry out skills in which he has been trained. In other words, technical (or vocational) knowledge is like the training caricature and science is like the university caricature, with the technologist placed between the two. It is worth noting that science tends to favor the academic and cognitive curriculum models, while technical education leans toward a means-ends curriculum conceived mainly as a pattern of proficiencies.

For example, a mechanic is a technician. He can carry out a routine, like finding out why a car will not run and bolting on a new part to fix it. A technologist could apply theory to redesign the motor so that it would not have broken down in the first place. A scientist might look at the car, shrug, call a mechanic, and read a book about combustible molecules while waiting.

Theological programs fit the same categories. A student doing simple ministry studies is learning to be a technician, while someone learning associated intellectual skills is a technologist. The theological theoretician is a scientist.

Differentiating between these categories is not always easy. Many programs emphasize one but include elements of another, especially the technological which easily tends to drift toward one of the others.

Quite inaccurately, the scientific model appears "traditional" and the technological model appears "innovative." In much the same way, these three categories carry different levels of academic prestige. A program gains academic prestige by moving from technical to technological, or from technological to scientific. In the language of academia, this is "raising standards," which is not at all accurate as it says nothing about standards or whether graduates are better suited to do what they are trained to do. For similar reasons, the opposite movement between categories loses prestige. This has the particularly unfortunate consequence that technical education easily appears somehow inferior. In fact, it is far better suited to some contexts, and even socio-economically higher and academically advanced students are keen to learn skill which they perceive to be useful skills.

Nomenclature and the Creation of New Degrees

Nomenclature is the normal shorthand for representing the meaning of a degree, and despite its conservatism, it is an important part of classifying programs.

The most common degree levels in the English-speaking world are Certificate, Associate, Diploma, Bachelor, Bachelor with honors, Master, and Doctor; there are of course many others. A general classification follows, often (but not always) the name of a university faculty (Arts, Law, Science, Applied Science, Theology, Ministry, etc). This element now increasingly reflects a faculty other than that in which the degree is taken; the B.A. and M.A. are increasingly generalist degrees available, for example, in education and theology. Often the next element is the major area of study which makes the degree name more specific; it becomes "Bachelor of Science (Biology)" or "Master of Arts in Biblical Literature". A degree with a double major might be "Bachelor of Arts in History and Linguistics."

Changes in nomenclature can reflect changes of degree meaning. In North America, the graduate Bachelor of Divinity became the Master of Divinity and the graduate Bachelor of Law became the Juris Doctor. The names of degree levels changed while still representing the same learning; they now signify culmination or accumulation of education rather than a higher academic step in the same discipline.

A more difficult issue is that schools want the freedom to create new degrees. Accreditors are forced to give some scope for each school to experiment and to create new areas of study. Private accreditors cannot forbid schools to do so, despite the need to guard against an unnecessary profusion of confusing titles. Bear (1980:14, 16) notes that there are over three hundred Bachelor's degree titles, and over five hundred different doctoral titles, and the unfortunate trend is to increase their number. It does not help that some equivalent degrees mean much the same, like the Master of Theological Studies and the M.A. in Theology, or the Bachelor of Biblical Studies and the Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies.

British research programs keep the number of degree titles to a minimum while virtually creating new degrees for every student. As thesis topics are so specific, and as the thesis and its defense is the only requirement other than entry prerequisites, the degree is on a unique topic. Schools may accept thesis proposals if they can adequately supervise and evaluate the research project, which usually means within their specializations. The degree itself is usually very generic, (Bachelor of Philosophy, Master of Philosophy, Master of Science, Master of Arts, Master of Theology, Doctor of Philosophy) so students may sometimes use thesis titles to indicate the area of study, despite its extreme specialization.

A school should not create a new, different type of degree and call it a Bachelor of Theology if the meaning of that degree is already fixed as an arbitrary convention. A school can choose which classifications it finds suitable as long as they are consistent with the definitions of the level. By using classifications to define degree levels (Certificate, Diploma, Bachelor, Master, etc. ), accreditors can provide guidelines for the creation of degrees. For example, definitions of a Bachelor degree can fit a Bachelor of Theology, a Bachelor of Biblical Studies, a Bachelor of Arts in Theology, a Bachelor of Arts in Bible, and a Bachelor of Ministry.

The accreditor can then explain their relationship to other categories, which can affect them radically. For example, a postprofesional Bachelor has more in common with a postprofessional Master than a professional Bachelor.

Relationships Between Classifications

As conventions, particular classifications almost always co-occur in various degrees. Scientific degrees always have ways for capable graduates to continue to higher degrees.

Technical education in many countries goes no higher than a diploma. In some countries, the difference between a three-year diploma and a degree of the same length is classification; the diploma is technical while the degree is at least technological, even if it includes large skill components. (Ramsey, 1978:214f) ATA made an unfortunate exception when it defined a Bachelor of Theology in TEE as technical, probably because the Singapore ATA consultation was so committed to a training caricature.

The mosaic is complex; some certificate programs are clearly simple technical training, while others are the first two years of a degree program. Professions also come in levels, most particularly scientific, technical and vocational.

The role of classification is considerably reflected in nomenclature. For example, a Bachelor of Theology program might be scientific or technological, but a Bachelor of Ministry program is only technological with a strong skills element. The Master of Divinity in North America is a practitioner degree, quite unlike the Master of Theology.

Conclusion

In summary, a degree can be defined using the following classifications: conception of degrees, literacy skills, information systems, delivery systems, nomenclature, terminality, professionality and whether it is scientific, technological or technical. One further problem relating particularly to degree meaning is the problem of degree mills, the topic of the next chapter.