The Assessment of the Key Competences for Lifelong Learning—The Fuzzy Model Approach for Sustainable Education

Aleksandar Aleksić,Snežana Nestić,Michael Huber,Nikolina Ljepava

doi:10.3390/su14052686

Abstract

Contemporary education in higher education institutions has a goal to provide necessary competences determined by legislative demands, science trends and job market needs to graduated students intending to strengthen their employability. The main idea of this research is to assess the level of students’ competences for lifelong learning (LLL). Since it is a very complex task, it is characterized by a lack of information and the vagueness of the inherently subjective nature of human thinking. The uncertain values of the assessed level of students’ competences for LLL are represented by linguistic expressions which are modeled by the interval type 2 trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Ranking of the level of students’ competences for LLL is stated as a fuzzy multi-criteria optimization task. The aggregation of students’ opinions into unique marks is given by using the proposed fuzzy Delphi technique. The rank of students’ competences for LLL is given by using the proposed fuzzy Simple Additive Weighting (FSAW). The order of measures that should be delivered to improve students’ competences is based on the obtained rank. The model is tested and discussed on the real data collected from a significant sample of the students with a proposal of future directions of the research.

Highlights

IntroductionAlmost all companies are struggling to document, maintain and further develop the relevant knowledge and the resulting competencies in the long term
The ranking of students’ competences for lifelong learning (LLL) can be adequately stated as a fuzzy multi-criteria optimization task. Students express their assessment of competences for LLL while using predefined linguistic expressions more smoothly compared to the employment of precise numbers
It is shown that the level of students’ competences for LLL can be successfully stated as a fuzzy multi-criteria decisionmaking task

Summary

Introduction

Almost all companies are struggling to document, maintain and further develop the relevant knowledge and the resulting competencies in the long term. Knowledge in the narrower sense does not require competencies. The global market significantly impacts the development and enhancement of current study programs all over the world. The global change and unpredicted events might speed up the need for change and improvement of education [1]. To enhance students’ achievement, teachers could improve their communication skills and knowledge transfer [2]. There is a recognized need for the improvement of formal education and lifelong learning programs [3]. The motivation for this research comes from the fact that ongoing courses at the level of study programs should be improved so they could address emerging employers’ needs and enable sustainable education

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion