It is peculiar that within the European initiatives towards the implementation of credit systems the central elements are the awarding of credits and the accumulation of certified learning outcomes on the basis of modular structured units of qualification. Regardless of these central elements the core of a credit system lies within facilitating access and transmission between different learning contexts and shortening the duration of training. Therefor the crucial questions of this project are if in selected countries already approaches and models exist, which also aim to facilitate transparency, comparability and recognition and on which central elements they are based. Relevant examples, which are implemented respectively discussed, can be found in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Scotland.

Within the European definition credit-systems “enable accumulation of learning outcomes gained in formal, non-formal and/or informal settings, and facilitate their transfer from one setting to another for validation and recognition” (CEDEFOP 2008, p.53). The understanding of ‘credit-systems’ within the project is broader than the common understanding of this term, because the approaches in the respective countries - except Scotland - are practised without granting credit points. Although in every analysed country an institutional and legal framework exists, which enables the recognition of learning outcomes, the knowledge about the concrete practice and implementation, the de facto use and the impact of these approaches and models is insufficient. Furthermore it is to question whether the implemented approaches can be understood as a comprehensive system over all different learning contexts of the educational system, which is able to facilitate the transparency, comparability, transferability and mutual recognition of proved learning outcomes as well as to promote lifelong learning and permeability. The core of the project was a deepened analysis of approaches and if applicable systems or procedures, which are used within the different countries to describe, evaluate/control, document and to recognize prior learning. Furthermore within the project it was investigated, how these approaches are realized in practice and which effects they have at the selected interfaces within the system.

In the focus of the research process are questions regarding the reason for special phenomena (institutional circumstances and conditions of the educational system) as well as questions regarding the social process, within which the mechanisms operate (driving forces and methodological-conceptual fundamentals). The project was constructed as an explorative study, which wanted to reconstruct influencing factors, transfer processes and impact mechanisms of credit-systems respectively recognition approaches, that is identify the causal mechanisms within systems of interaction and within stakeholder constellations. Furthermore the project aims to propose options and regulative needs for the development of national credit system.

To theoretically conceptualise and analyse the processes in the context of recognition and crediting of prior learning an institutional research perspective is required. So to examine recognition and credit systems not only pedagogical theories but especially institutional theoretical approaches are relevant and were explored within the study. Besides the competence theory and the certification theory the theoretical basis of the analysis is formed by the institution theory and the governance approach.

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