What is DACUM?

DACUM or “Developing A Curriculum” is an innovative occupational analysis that uses a committee of expert workers in a group process to define their job. DACUM is a relatively new approach to occupational analysis. It has proven to be a very effective method of quickly determining, at relatively low cost, the competencies or tasks that must be performed by persons employed in a given job or occupational area.

 

DACUM Is Based On Three Premises:

  1. Expert workers are in a better position to describe their job/occupation than anyone else.

A carefully chosen group of 8-12 expert workers from the occupational area under consideration form the DACUM committee (or panel). Committee members are recruited directly from business, industry, or the professions. Modified small-group brainstorming techniques are used to obtain the collective expertise and consensus of the committee.

  1. Any job/occupation can be effectively described in terms of tasks that successful workers in that job/occupations perform.

The analysis typically results in the identification of 6 to 12 duties involving 50 to 150 tasks that define what a successful worker in a particular job or cluster of related jobs must be able to do. The end product of a DACUM analysis is a complete competency profile, the validity of which is comparable to that of any other analysis method.

  1. All tasks, in order to be performed correctly, require certain knowledge, skill, and attitudes.

Whereas the primary focus of DACUM is on the performance aspects of a job, these lists (of duties & tasks) represent other aspects of job analysis; they represent different ways of looking at the requirements of the job.

 

DACUM has been successfully used to analyze thousands of occupations at the professional, technical, skilled, and semi-skilled levels in hundreds of job/occupational classifications.

RHORC will update this webpage with current information on DACUM panels in the health occupations being offered.

For more information about DACUM and resources for finding previously completed DACUMs try this website that has a lot of useful links.

http://www.interlynx.net/archway/Home.html