LEARNING OUTCOMES AND COMPETENCES IN MATHEMATICS AFTER A FOUR YEAR EXPERIENCE IN ENGINEERING DEGREES

As a result of the Bologna process, Spanish universities designed new 4-year degrees, using the ECTS grading scale, built upon the concepts of competences and learning outcomes. The selection of those competences and learning outcomes involves three main steps: planning, methodology and evaluation.

It seems clear that teachers of Mathematics do not share the same ideas about how students acquire these competences and, especially, how they should be evaluated. Our university Engineering degrees will soon be subject to review by the national agency for the quality assessment and accreditation of Spain. It is the right time to survey what has been done and, in particular, how teachers have managed throughout the past four years.

In this work, we will show that our university Mathematics teachers are far from having homogeneous conceptions on this topic. We suggest and strongly recommend to open a space for continuous debate and exchange of ideas and experiences. An analysis of this review will help us to make a decision in order to improve the university Mathematics education in general and, in particular, the quality and evaluation of our Engineering degrees under the national agency review.