Abstract: The study of key competences aims at building a comprehensive education system to promote college students' all-rounded development. A theoretic exploration on approaches to the research about the key competence will provide reference for other relevant researches in the future. The theoretical perspective of the key competence already transferred from the traditional ability-based perspective to an integrated one. This transition placed more emphasis on the ability of problem solving in real-world situations, which not only focus on the developmental outcome of the key competence but also on the process of competences. As for the research theoretic framework, it has already shifted from the research outcome to systematic views internationally, which integrates the goal of education with education practices based on the key competence. The construction of the key competence mainly involves the top-level design, theoretical research, empirical investigation, result integration and validity verification and the five elements mentioned above correlated to each other. Future research should from a systematic view be based on the whole framework of the key competence with more evidence from follow-up studies. The study of the key competence should also include students' developmental needs through the whole research.

Key words: learning to learn competency, key competencies, connotation and assessment