Competency-Based Education (CBE) is very similar to and often used synonomously with PBE. It involves promoting students to the next level of instruction after they have achieved learning expectations for content at the previous level. CBE emphasizes: a body of evidence that shows students meet learning outcomes (via students demonstrating mastery), a deemphasis on seat time, flexible time to demonstrate mastery, multiple types of instruction, adaptable content, and self-navigation skills.

The Aurora Institute promotes many resources about CBE including this widely used seven-element definition developed by its technical advisory group:

  • Students are empowered daily to make important decisions about their learning experiences, how they will create and apply knowlege, and how they will demonstrate their learning.
  • Assessment is a meaningful, positive, and empowering learning experience for students that yields timely, relevant, and actionable evidence.
  • Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs.
  • Students progress based on evidence of mastery, not seat time.
  • Students learn actively using different pathways and varied pacing.
  • Strategies to ensure equity for all students are embedded in the culture, structure, and pedagogy of schools and educational systems.
  • Rigorous, common expectations for learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) are explicit, transparent, measureable, and transferable (CompetencyWorks, 2019). 

According to Hess, Colby, and Joseph (2020), CBE includes the following the core components:

  • Competencies (broad statements of learning that are supported by standards),
  • Personal Success Skills (e.g., 21st Century Skills, Profile of a Graduate),
  • Performance Assessments (a continuum of increasingly complex tasks [organized as a performance scale]),
  • Learning Pathways (descriptions how students will demonstrate deeper understanding)
  • Evidence-Based Grading (scoring and reporting based on a body of evidence).