Strategy for the Evaluation and Monitoring of Competencies in Engineering Programs to Improve Students’ Learning and Quality of Education

Pamela Hermosilla,Nicolás Ateaga,Felipe Muñoz-La Rivera,Elisa Gallardo

doi:10.3390/su132111721

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) framework propose the concept of competencies as a key cognitive, attitudinal, and procedural aspect aimed at the integral development of students, which implies a challenge in the way of evaluating them. Thus, the traditional monitoring of students’ progress through their grades is not enough, and monitoring competency is becoming more important. This research proposes a system for monitoring competencies in engineering programs. The system identifies the expected learning outcomes (LOs) of each course and cross-references them according to the ponderation of each evaluation planned. Subsequently, it links each LO with the competencies of the course, allowing the student to be monitored throughout their career. The strategy was applied to a civil engineering course. The students’ results, according to the course competencies, were obtained, linking them correctly with the LO and the grades obtained. The evolution of these competencies was evaluated until the end of the semester in which the students were taking the course. The analysis of the results shows the differences between the monitoring by grades versus by competencies, evidencing that there were cases in which a student passed the course by grades but failed to develop the expected competency.

Highlights

IntroductionIn the university context, competency-based educational programs seek to establish a set of competencies to be developed throughout a career, promoting the integration of knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the contexts of different disciplines [6], as well as student learning opportunities in accordance with the sustainable development goal of quality education [7]
Following the continuous improvement trends and the evaluation parameters of different international accreditation entities, this paper provides a general description of the aspects of the com/journal/sustainabilityCompetency-based education (CBE) model, giving a practical approach through its application to a real-life case study in the field of engineering
The lines in the red zone correspond to those students who, for the indicated semester, have not surpassed 60% of the achievement of the competence that they should have fulfilled in the corresponding courses

Summary

Introduction

In the university context, competency-based educational programs seek to establish a set of competencies to be developed throughout a career, promoting the integration of knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the contexts of different disciplines [6], as well as student learning opportunities in accordance with the sustainable development goal of quality education [7]. 1960s, competency-basededucation educationwas wascharacterised characterisedbyby providing details behavioural ascompetency-based providing details of of behavioural aspects of a professional development task, is, considering procedural and attitudinal ofpects a professional development task, that is,that considering procedural and attitudinal aspects in addition to conceptual This approach is intended to promote inaspects addition to conceptual notions notions [8,19,20].[8,19,20]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion