The multiple affordances, complexities and limitations of micro-credentials - practitioner voices

Abstract

In this paper I analyse the voices of higher and vocational education practitioners and stakeholders in the micro-credentials arena to answer the research question: What are the possible affordances, complexities and limitations of micro-credentials? Micro-credentials are small pieces of recognised learning and assessment (European Commission, 2020) that can function as an agent of change for better or worse (Desmarchelier & Cary, 2022, Gibson et al., 2016, Hanshaw, 2024, McGreal & Olcott, 2022, Pollard & Vincent, 2022, Ralston, 2021, Wilson et al., 2016). There is a gap in the literature on the possible affordances, complexities and limitations of micro-credentials experienced in practice and following the voices of practitioners’ lived experience points bring us to understanding new ways of doing things (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). My data collection involved semi-structured interviews with ten participants from Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada who were experts or stakeholders in micro-credentialing development. By using Reflexive Thematic Analyses and Qualitative Descriptive Research, I uncover and present themes, which indicate multiple powerful and positive affordances which act as catalysts to micro-credential development, and numerous associated complexities/limitations which act as inhibitors, and investigate the relationship between them.  Looking through the lenses of power/knowledge, which is practised in society as a strategy to exert control over others (Foucault, 1980) and disruptive innovations, which create footholds in markets where no market existed, (Christensen et al., 2015), I explore a possible motivational context behind these inhibitors. Finally, I propose how we might better leverage the successful build out of powerful micro-credentials, to the betterment of the human experience.