Abstract
University, as a social institution as defined in the European Higher Education Area, must be a benchmark in the preparation for beginning employment and education for the exercise of active citizenship. Therefore its functions include the development of knowledge and skills needed for appropriate personal performance in various social and professional arenas. This education is complex and requires bringing together specific and generic (or transversal) competencies. The fundamental aim of this study is to present the construction and validation of a questionnaire for evaluating generic competencies acquired via practical service-learning education and the potential employability of university students. Empirical analysis of the reliability and validity of the instrument was performed with a sample of 564 university students (67.2% women), aged between 18 and 59 years old, although with the majority between 18 and 22 (M = 20.96). Following exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, as well as analysis of the items and the internal consistency of the scale, the results allow us to conclude that the internal consistency and validity of the Questionnaire on University Students’ Generic Competencies are satisfactory. The proposed measurement model incorporates various prior theoretical contributions, and offers a complementary scale that may contribute to advancing research into service-learning and employability.
Highlights
Twenty-first century society is in the middle of a social and technological revolution which is producing new contexts that people must adapt to, contributing to the construction of processes that improve people’s overall quality of life
In Spain there have been contributions from studies referring to the implementation of service-learning, such as Resch et al (2020), but sufficiently thorough work using appropriate methodologies is scarce. For this reason we have proposed the construction and validation of a questionnaire to evaluate acquired generic competencies and university students’ potential employability from the practical educational approach offered by service-learning
The instrument we proposed was a questionnaire for evaluating acquired generic competencies and university students’ potential employability
Summary
Twenty-first century society is in the middle of a social and technological revolution which is producing new contexts that people must adapt to, contributing to the construction of processes that improve people’s overall quality of life. In the areas of economics and employment, Drittich (2016) called these transformations the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In this revolution, the knowledge society (with particular attention to education and creativity) has become especially important, and it has Questionnaire for Students’ Generic Competencies produced new dynamics between the educational system and the world of work, due to the demand for academic training that is more suited to the needs of industry (Santos-Rego et al, 2018). The demands of modern society strengthen the need for students to have comprehensive training, they must take on responsibilities and develop key competencies for an ever-changing social and professional environment (Álvarez-Benítez and Asensio-Muñoz, 2020)
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