Session Information
Contribution
The evaluation of the competences of university students is a relevant research topic, due to the implementation of the approach of competency-based education promoted by the EHEA (Medina, 2013; Medina, 2019; Tokareva et al., 2109; Villardón, 2006) in distance education scenarios and future teaching roles (Roberts, 2018). In general terms, evaluation is a value judgment that allows university teachers to understand what and how university students learn, in order to make appropriate didactics decisions to develop the teaching-learning processes based on competencies (Boud, & Falchikov, 2006; Gómez et al., 2013; Ibarra el al, 2020). In the previous research on formative evaluation different principles have been highlighted, namely: 1) the need to reflect on what to teach, what to learn and what, how, when and who should evaluate; 2) place the evaluation at the core of teaching planning; 3) highlight the relevance of involving students in the process; 4) enhance shared responsibility in the process; 5) use feedback to improve learning, among others. In this way, the formative evaluation is part of a university culture based on the improvement of student training, in order to place the evaluation function of teachers as a nuclear aspect of the teaching process (Carless, 2015; Hernández, 2012; Nicol et al., 2014). The evaluation of the progress and development of student competencies considers the individual experiences (Cacheiro et al., 2020) and social presence needs (Lowenthal & Dunlap, 2020). The theoretical vision confirms the high meaning and formative potential of the evaluation of the competences, singularly the communication, in its double meaning as basic and professional, followed by the necessary advance for the professionals of education in consolidating professional identity competence.
From this perspective - and considering the line of research that this research group has been developing -, the objective of this contribution is to assess the development of the competencies of the master's students and their impact on their own professional development.
Method
The context of the research is a Master's Degree on Strategies and Technologies on Teacher Training (60 ECTS), which is developed in a distance education system. The research and consolidation line of the teaching innovation group considers in this study the vision of mixed methods (Creswell, 2014; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Ivankova, 2015; Plano & Ivankova, 2016; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2002), with emphasis on the application of the case study Hamilton & Colbert, 2013), which synthesizes the knowledge-generating vision, applying narratives and analysis of the content expressed in the tasks and collected in the forums of the digital platform. The participants are two student promotions of subject “Innovation and Profesional Development in a Multicultural Society” from the Master (n=74), whose profile integrates in-service education professionals with students who have just finished the Degree in Education (Primary Education, Social Education, Pedagogy, etc.) and who do not have teaching experience. The instrument used has been a self-report through ad-hoc tasks in the forum applied as a diagnostic, formative and final evaluation of competencies. These results are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, considering an exploratory perspective.
Expected Outcomes
The objective of this contribution was to assess the development of the competencies of the master's students and their impact on their own professional development. The contributions of the 74 students in the teaching innovation forum has generated 630 messages (385 from students and 245 from the teaching team). The results of the qualitative analysis of have shown us: a) Diagnostic evaluation. Students valued their highest level in professional identity competence and the lowest in methodological, in their double didactic and heuristic perspective. b) Formative evaluation. Text analysis stressed that students must deepen the communication and methodological competences. c) Summative evaluation. Students considered that their evolution in the advancement of the competences has improved qualitatively, in the professional identity competence their evolution is less, due to their high initial assessment. It is concluded that the evaluation helps to understand the formative meaning of each competence for the students, as well as emerges in the main guarantee to achieve success in the future profession. It was evidenced that communication competence is improved, but both its breadth and complexity and its value to successfully develop the future profession, pose a greater development. Likewise, the students manifest that innovation is guaranteed by advancing in the domain of the most valuable methodology. Among the implications for professional development it is worth highlighting that we learn to self-evaluate by becoming aware of the significance and projection of the texts narrated by the students, aware that by developing our evaluative function (self-evaluation, coevaluation and hetero-evaluation) we know more rigorously our competences and we make better decisions to keep improving. Acknowledgments. This study is part of the research project ComProfeSU (EDU2016-78451-P) funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness in Spain and is partially related with ComDisDoc Innovation Group and ForInterMed Research Group both at UNED.
References
Boud, D. & Falchikov, N. (2006). Aligning assessment with long-term learning. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(4), 399-413. Cacheiro-González, M. L., González-Fernández, R. y López-Gómez, E. (2020). Experiencias, situaciones y recursos para el desarrollo de habilidades: un enfoque cualitativo con estudiantes de posgrado. Texto livre: Linguagem e Tecnologia, 13(3), 1-24. Carless, D. (2015). Exploring learning-oriented assessment processes. Higher Education, 69(6), 963–976. Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage. Domínguez, M.C. et al (2018). Desarrollo de competencias en el primer curso de universidad: estudio de caso. Publicaciones, 48(1), 39-62. Gómez, M. Á., Rodríguez, G., & Ibarra, M. S. (2013). Desarrollo de las competencias básicas de los estudiantes de Educación Superior mediante la e-Evaluación orientada al aprendizaje. RELIEVE, 19(1), 1-17. Hamilton, L. & Colbert, C. (2013). Using case study in education research. London: SAGE. Hernández, R. (2012). Does continuous assessment in higher education support student learning? Higher Education, 64(4), 489–502. Ibarra, M. S. et al. (2020). Developing student competence through peer assessment: the role of feedback, self-regulation and evaluative judgement. Higher Education, 1-20. Ivankova, N. V. (2015). Mixed methods applications in action research: From methods to community action. Sage. Johnson, R. B., & Onwuegbuzie, J. A. (2004). Mixed methods research: A research paradigm whose time has come. Educational Researcher, 33(7), 14-24. Lowenthal, P. R., & Dunlap, J. C. (2020). Social presence and online discussions: a mixed method investigation. Distance Education, 41(4), 490-514. Medina, A. (coord.). (2013). Actividades innovadoras para el desarrollo de competencias. Ramón Areces. Medina, A., Domínguez., M.C.; Cacheiro., M.L., & Medina., M.d.C. (2019). Development of Student Competences for the Quality of Higher Education. ECER. Hamburgo, 05-07/09/2018. Nicol, D., Thomson, A., & Breslin, C. (2014). Rethinking feedback practices in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 39(1), 102–122 Plano, V. L., & Ivankova, N. V. (2016). Mixed methods research. Sage. Roberts, J. (2018). Future and changing roles of staff in distance education. Distance Education, 39(1), 37-53. Tashakkori, A. & Teddlie, Ch. (2002). Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research. Sage. Tokareva, E. A., Smirnova, Y. V, & Orchakova, L. G. (2019). Innovation and communication technologies. Education and Information Technologies, 24(5), 3219-3234. Villardón, M. L. (2006). Evaluación del aprendizaje para promover el desarrollo de competencias. Educatio Siglo XXI, 24, 57-76.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.