The implementation of the competency based assessment in the teacher training education: a study of a Spanish university

Author(s):

Enrique Alastor Garcia Cheikh-Lahlou(presenting / submitting)Inmaculada Martinez Garcia(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper (Copy for Joint Session)

Session Information

10 SES 05 E JS, Perceptions and Learning Opportunities of Beginner Teachers on Assessment

Joint Paper Session NW 09 and NW 10

Time:

2017-08-23

13:30-15:00

Room:

W5.18

Chair:

Martin Goy

Contribution

The implantation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in which Spanish universities are still immersed have changed methodologies and assessment procedures in European universities. One of the main aspects of change is the new design of the curriculum based on competences and consequently the evaluation of the universities students has been modified as well.

In addition to a curriculum focused on competencies, and whose definition has been one of the main educational policies of the European Union (Deakin, 2008), issues such as mobility, the structure of titles, the quality, the promotion of the European dimension of Higher Education, cooperation, social cohesion, and lifelong learning were raised; being these the basic foundation on which the Higher Education must be sustained (González and López, 2010: 404).

For Gordon et al. (2009) competences are characterized by the inclusion of skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are applied, which imply emotions, mind and body and are involved in the development of skills that favour the use of knowledge in different circumstances. According to Westera (2001:80) a competence is the ability to make satisfactory and effective decisions in a specific situation. Their common characteristics, identified by Rodríguez and Vieira (2009:31) are: they are based on the action to respond successfully to a demand or purpose, are linked to a context, are verifiable, can be learned and assessed and mobilize and integrate different elements such as knowledge, skills, procedures and attitudes.

The assessment of competences is a rich process that is not only oriented to determine the level of a particular student's learning but also should take into consideration other key aspects in the teaching learning process such as: knowledge, practices, abilities, attitudes, values and level of commitment, which are synthesized in the style and way that each student learns and dominates them (Medina, Domínguez and Sánchez, 2013:242).

It is Fernández (2010) who establishes that to assess competences is needed in order to respond to issues such as identifying the level of domain in students with the idea of being able to guide them to an expert level of competence, what will be key for their future development.

In this context is where this research takes place in order to have an in depth knowledge of assessment practices at one Department of Education where the training for the future teachers takes place. In order to improve Spanish system at university we have thought that it is important to do a study by researching about assessment practices that have been carried out by academics of a Spanish University. Through this study we try to answer this question; what are the assessment practices carried out in the education department and what are the academics' impressions of them?

General aim:

To analyze the assessment practices in the university context as a way to improve the knowledge of the students learning processes in the Department of Education.

Specific aims:

Identify the assessment methods that university teachers carry out with their students.

Study their perceptions about competence based assessment as methodology for evaluation.

Analyse the way that competence based assessment is developed by academics in their lessons.

Examine the difficulties that are perceived by university teachers in the performance of the competence based assessment in their class.

Method

This is a quantitative study that aims to know the assessment practices in an University context as a way to improve the teaching and learning processes of the future school teachers and future workers on education. The research is part of a pilot study, therefore this is the first phase that is based on the application of a survey that has been designed and validated by experts on the field. The sample is made of 17 academics that belong to all the areas of the Department of Education from a Spanish University. To this end, the questionnaire has been sent by email to all the academics that have teaching duties in this Department. The criteria that has been established for the selection of the population are the following ones: 1. Belonging to the Faculty of Education because it is a study in which we will analyze the assessment practices at this center. 2. The participants must have teaching duties. Through this research we pretend to analyze what kind of assessment do the academics carry out in their classes as a way to improve the knowledge of their students. The participants will have to answer questions about their real practice, so that it is important to have teaching duties as they will need to respond in accordance to them. For the data collection a questionnaire has been designed. One of the main advantages of this kind of instrument is that it can be filled online, the non- presence of the researcher assures not influenced responses, it hasn’t got any economical costs and it is easy to be filled by the participants (Bryman, 2012). These are the main reasons for it use in this research. The questionnaire has been designed attending to four big blocks (according to the aims of the study). In the first one the aim is to get information about the evaluation methodology that has been used by the academics; the second one is about their opinion about the competency based assessment methodology, the next one includes questions about how they perform this kind of assessment in their classroom and finally, we ask teachers about the difficulties that are perceived in the performance of the competency based methodology. The questionnaire has been validated by three experts in the field who made suggestions and changes to the original document that was designed. Statistical program SPSS was used.

Expected Outcomes

The results obtained show opinions about the assessment methodologies that are more popular in the Spanish context. Subsequently we have obtained that teamwork and evaluation thought practices are the methodologies most commonly used by university teachers. We have also got information about the perception of competency based assessment by teachers who affirm that this type of assessment requires more planning and they find some difficulties in it developing in the classes when they perform the summative evaluation (40%) and when they evaluate attitudes (60%). The instruments for assessment that are more popular among the university teachers in the Department of Education are work by projects, problem resolution and observation of the student’s performance. Regarding the competency based assessment, 80% of the participants confirm that they have used it at some point in their teaching trajectory. Likewise, there is generally a strong agreement on the fact that this type of assessment promotes reflection among students; = 5,47 (σ = 0,834), favours a feedback in the classroom that helps to improve the environment; = 5,53 (σ = 0,834), and it is responsible for developing the creative and lateral thinking; = 5,4 (σ = 0,828). In conclusion, we obtain information about the most popular evaluation methodologies and also about the importance of the competency based assessment that is perceived by the university teachers from the educational field.

References

Bryman, A. (2012). Social Research Methods (4a ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Deakin, R. (2008). Key Competencies for Education in a European Context: Narratives of Accountability or Care. European Educational Research Journal, 7 (3), 311-318. Fernández March, A. (2010). Cambio de la cultura de evaluación educativa no solo de métodos. Trabajado presentado al Seminario Internacional de trabajo sobre la evaluación a través de rúbricas, UPV, San Sebastián-Donostia, 17-18 de Junio. González López, I. y López Cámara, A. B. (2010). Sentando las bases para la construcción de un modelo de evaluación a las competencias docentes del profesorado universitario. Revista de Investigación Educativa, 28 (2), 403-423. Gordon, J., Halasz, G., Krawczyk, M., Leney, T., Michel, A., Pepper, D., Putkiewicz, E. y Wi niewski, J. (2009). Key Competences in Europe: Opening Doors for Lifelong Learners across the School Curriculum and Teacher Education. Varsovia: CASE. Medina Rivilla, A., Domínguez Garrido, M. C. y Sánchez Romero, C. (2013). Evaluación de las competencias de los estudiantes: modelos y técnicas para la valoración. Revista de Investigación Educativa, 31 (1), 239-255. Westera, W. (2001). Competences in education: a confusion of tongues. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 33 (1), 75-88.

Author Information

Enrique Alastor Garcia Cheikh-Lahlou (presenting / submitting)

University of Seville, Spain

Inmaculada Martinez Garcia (presenting)