Topic: Key competences assessment and secondary school teacher training in Spain. Research questions/hypotheses: The existence of a good assessment and competence design model in secondary education teacher training programs, mainly based on the use of Communication and Information Technologies (ICTs), would serve to improve quality indicators in compulsory secondary education in Spain. Objectives: - To carry out a key competences assessment of the future secondary education teachers in Spain. - To assess the effect of the use of Information and Communication Technologies on the initial stages of teacher training processes. - To help improving the quality of education in Spain. Theoretical framework: The assessment process has became an essential element in nowadays educational debate. The functions that can be assigned to this process are varied, but we would like to emphasize those of diagnosis, comparison, control, improvement and comprehension as highly relevant for the educational environment. On an international level, the Association for Cooperation and Economical Development has carried out a comparative project on competence assessment called PISA (Program for International Student Assessment). PISA study developed an assessment process of contents and skills which are required in an student who is about to finish compulsory education stages and can either continue further in the educational process or join in labour activities. One of the most innovative features that we can spot in PISA project is the concept of literacy, to refer to a type of information which is able to supply the students with enough background knowledge to cope with the challenges of real and adult life. In the research we are presenting, we aim to focus on competences related to information management through Information and Communication Technologies, with the objective of being efficient in the acquisition of valid and confirmed knowledge, through information search processes and interpretation of texts only from reading its new information, reflecting and assessing it (Information or technological literacy, ALFIN). In the centre of generic competences we find informational literacy, taken as a cognitive and affective net which allows humans not only to recognise their own informational necessities, but also to act, understand, find, assess and use the most diverse types of information. The concept of ALFIN is polyhedrical and hosts a convergence of tendencies and definitions coming from different schools, developments and different research sectors or areas. The idea of informational literacy was born on the 70s and has developed in such a quick way that nowadays is reckoned as an essential necessity of multialphabetism in the XXI Century. We understand informational literacy as a key competence for the necessary evolution and development of people once their educational time is finished. The dynamic character of Information and Communication Technolgies enables and makes it easier to present and use information, as opposed to linear models of traditional text. There are numerous studies which highlight the inconveniences of its use (Trahtemberg, 2001), although there is also extensive research on the educational value of this way of accessing information (Mayer, 2001).

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