Abstract
There is some consensus among academics and employers that transversal competencies are one of the key aspects in training people to adapt to the demands of today's world. Universities make a great effort in the design of training programs, in preparing their teachers in training methodologies and in the evaluation systems to guarantee that their graduates acquire an adequate level of these skills. However, there are few studies that address the impact of gender and academic degrees on the performance of transversal competencies.This study aims to assess whether gender and degree have any impact on the level of transversal competencies obtained at the end of their higher education studies. To this end, we have evaluated 1,614 final year students from 11 higher education centers using a standardized questionnaire on the competencies of Communication, Leadership, Teamwork, Adaptation to change, Initiative, Problem solving, Decision-making, Planning and Organization. We have carried out a Multivariate Variance Analysis to analyze the effect of gender, degree and the interaction between both factors on the students' competence profile. The results show that men perform better in Leadership, Initiative and Decision-making, whereas women score better in Planning and Teamwork skills. Students of Social Sciences degrees have a poorer performance in the competencies than students of Health Sciences and Technical Education. In Planning, women perform better, regardless of the degree, compared to men.
Highlights
Since the European Higher Education Area introduced competence development as one of its main training objectives (European Higher Education Area, 1999), universities have implemented the competence model in their degrees (Casanova, 2016)
The sample was made up of 1,614 students belonging to 78 different degrees taught in 11 public and private higher education centers. 47.3% were men and 52.7% women, with an average age of 25.2 years (SD=6.6), 92% of whom were under or equal to 35 years of age
The learning of transversal competencies requires that training programs are designed with a lower theoretical load and a higher practical load, regardless of the degree studied, since it requires their implementation for their optimal development
Summary
Since the European Higher Education Area introduced competence development as one of its main training objectives (European Higher Education Area, 1999), universities have implemented the competence model in their degrees (Casanova, 2016) This model has been carried out from the curricular designs, working on the development and evaluation of competencies (Barrientos, Silva and Antúnez, 2016), in the activities that are carried out in the day to day of the classroom, and even incorporating complementary ad hoc training programs (Ferrari, Santiago, Redondo, and Sánchez, 2015). Employers demand a high level of graduates in competitive matters (Tobón, 2006), organizational achievement (Alles, 2006), quick integration into teams, organizational culture and job performance, hoping that they will bring added value to the organization (Harvey, Moon and Geall, (1997), extracted from Diaz, 2005)
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