Abstract:

On March 14th, 2020, the Spanish Council of Ministers adopted the Royal Decree 463/2020, declaring the state of alarm to manage the health crisis caused by COVID-19. As a consequence, millions of students were forced to continue their learning from home. The extraordinary situation led teachers, unexpectedly and all of sudden, to teach online.

Despite that on June 21th, 2020, the state of alarm was put to an end, more than a year after the end of the pandemic is still a long way off. Although the improvised transition to the online learning made possible to finish the course 2020-2021 in a reasonably way, facing the future of higher education involves more carefully planning and designing teaching strategies that also allow online learning and students competences development.

Competences in higher education are organized into two large blocks:
(1) hard competences linked to each subject, defined as skills and knowledge related to the specific discipline and
(2) soft or transversal competences, common to any degree and closely linked to the current social and labour demands [1].

The incorporation of knowledge into the structure of advanced economies has changed production models and generated a new concept of professionalism based on new needs for qualifications and skills [2]. So, in this context, the development of soft competences that go beyond the knowledge of a disciplinary field makes sense. They influence the acquisition of other types of knowledge more versatile and linked to the personal and social dimensions of individuals [3], which eventually stimulate lifelong learning and the application of knowledge in an innovative way [4].

Despite the awareness of the importance of soft competences, in the current pandemic situation, they have taken a back seat due to high social distancing. For this reason, the main objective of this study is to analyse the level of soft competences developed by students of Business Organization subjects during the course 2020-2021, under conditions of restricted face-to-face sessions and blended teaching. The study is carried out in the Faculty of Economics and Business of the Universitat de Barcelona by assessing undergraduates’ competences in period of partial lockdown. It is expected that these preliminary results will help to reflect on the teaching strategies hastily introduced during the first outbreaks of the pandemic.

References:
[1] F. Michavila, J.M. Martínez, M. Martín-González, F.J. García-Peñalvo, J. Cruz-Benito, A. Vázquez-Ingelmo, Barómetro de Empleabilidad y Empleo Universitarios, Madrid: Observatorio de Empleabilidad y Empleo Universitarios, 2018.
[2] N. González-Morga, P. Martínez-Clares, “Relevancia de las competencias transversales en el desarrollo profesional del graduado. Percepción del estudiante”, Profesorado: Revista de Currículum y Formación de Profesorado, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 388–413, 2020.
[3] P. Martínez-Clares, N. González-Morga, “Las competencias transversales en la universidad: propiedades psicométricas de un cuestionario”, Educación XX1, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 231–262, 2018.
[4] Prising, J., “La Revolución de las Competencias: Talento, empleabilidad y tecnología”, ManpowerGroup, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.manpowergroup.es/infome-la-revolucion-de-las-competencias-talento-empleabilidad-tecnolog%C3%ADa

Keywords:

Soft competences, covid-19, pandemic, remote learning, social distancing, competence development, higher education.