In a learning society and a knowledge economy like the present-day ones, the university is required to provide a comprehensive training which would result not only in a high-quality technical training, but also in an increased social responsibility and civic commitment of the student body (McIlrath, Lyons, & Munck, 2012; Santos Rego & Lorenzo, 2010). What is pursued, therefore, is to educate university students not merely as professionals but also as citizens, a requirement set forth by the European Higher Education Area, and it demands breaking away from the classic patterns of the university systems (Martínez, 2006). The civic and ethical component appears in the EHEA on the occasion of the Berlin Conference (2003) mainly referring to the need of achieving an increased social cohesion in order to reduce gender-based social inequality.

Civic training in the university entails more than letting the student know about civic topics, engaging the students in issues affecting society at large or inducing them to have certain attitudes or be sensitive to the world around them. They must also be able to get involved, they must be capable to commit themselves in active citizenship projects, they must dare to change and transform society. It is, therefore, fundamental that civic learning takes into account the issue of competences (Martínez & Esteban, 2005).

Civic formation in the university must consider three objectives which are directly related to the promotion of two kinds of competences: the specific ones (competences for exercising citizenship) and the generic ones (ethical competences). The three objectives are (Santos Rego & Lorenzo, 2010):

• To train the person so that they could be able to build and direct their way of life and lifestyle based on judgment.
• To train the person in such a way that they could learn and accept as valuable that the only legitimate lifestyles in today’s society are those based on criteria of justice, equity and dignity.
• To specifically train the person for the exercise of civic rights and duties and for the effective participation in debate and decision-making contexts.

The achievement of the first two objectives would suppose the learning of ethical competences, whereas the third one would suppose the competences for the exercise of citizenship. On the one hand, one requires the learning of competences which would allow the building of effective life projects and, on the other hand, of specific competences for the civic exercise.

Our main objective is to contribute to the development of a model of measuring the civic and social competences of the university student body. We propose a scale based upon a theoretical model with four factors and 20 items.

The present paper was carried out within the framework of the project "Service-Learning and Innovation at University Level. A program to improve students’ academic performance and social capital" (EDU2013-41687-R), funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO).

Participants A total of 996 students of the University of Santiago de Compostela participated in our study. Their ages ranged from 19 to 45 years (M = 22.24; SD = 3.47). For the purpose of carrying out the various analysis, we randomly divided said sample into two sub-samples (using the IBM-IPSS statistics package, version 24). The first one was made up of 500 students (M = 22.26, SD = 3.67) and the second one of 496 students (M = 22.17 and SD = 3.39). Instrument We used the “Questionnaire on University Students’ Civic and Social Competences, and Self-efficacy” (CUCOCSA) devised by the research team based on instruments created in other contexts. The questionnaire consists of 13 questions formulated in closed categories (9) and of four Likert-type questions with five-response choices. The first one refers to university training (7 items); the second one focuses on the students’ social participation (5 items), the third one aims to explore the civic and social competences by means of 20 items; and the fourth is made up of 14 items focused on the self-efficacy as perceived by the student. Specifically, this study is focused on the civic and social competence scale. Data analysis First of all, using sub-sample 1 (calibration sample) with the aim of analyzing the psycho-metric properties of the scale, we proceeded to carry out an Exploratory Factorial Analysis (EFA) as well as to calculate the reliability of the factors by means of Cronbach’s alpha (α), using the IBM-IPSS statistics package, version 24. Subsequently, using sub-sample 2 (validation sample) we carried out a Confirmatory Factorial Analysis (CFA) using the AMOS 20 Statistics Package, with the purpose of checking whether the factorial structure previously obtained in the EFA adequately represented the information provided by the data. We did so using a cross-validation (Cudeck & Browne, 2010).

The dimensionality of the scale was determined by an EFA, following the Principal Components extraction method and a Varimax rotation. The sample size complies with the criterion generally agreed upon by methodologists (between 5 and 10 subjects per item). We can therefore state that our model presents a good fit result in light of the data. Moreover, all the factorial weights, as well as the correlations, are significant (p<.01). The exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses indicate that the solution is satisfactory, both in the factorial structure of the scale and in the evaluated levels of internal consistency. We can therefore conclude that the proposed instrument can be applied in an easy and speedy fashion, which is particularly useful in a population which, like university students, is usually not quite as co-operant as could be expected in this type of processes.

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