Abstract:

This paper focuses on the implementation of Activat innovative education project, based on problem-based learning (PBL) methodologies to assess Cross-Currricular Competences (CCC). The assessment of transversal key competences was implemented at the Universitat Politècnica de València in 2015 for undergraduate and master’s students to assure that graduates have acquired skills related to personal development, that they do no depend on specific disciplinary field but they draw on all areas of their professional and academic performance. Active learning, and specifically PBL methodologies provides skills for real life problem solving and prepare students to become responsible and active citizens. It is defined by a student-centred approach to learning and teaching, in which teachers are seen as facilitators of learning. In the Activat project, active learning methodologies are incorporated to the Business Administration degree program in order to develop a project per year in which the students face a challenge for a real company which is called EOA as the acronym of “Empresa Objeto de Aplicación”.

The Activat project is structured in five stages as follows:
(i) Define the challenges for the EOA;
(ii) Match the transversal key competences to the EOA challenges;
(iii) Design the subject activities;
(iv) Develop of the activities during a “Project Week”; and
(v) Assess the students learning outcomes.

This project involves the implementation of joint training activities across several subjects belonging to each course units to ease the horizontal and vertical coordination of teaching contents. Then, a conceptual framework is proposed and subsequently empirically validated through the analysis of the results of several groups of students in the Business Administration degree. Through the Activat project it is expected to have a positive impact on students learning outcomes related to the assessment of CCC defined by the Universitat Politècnica de València. As this is an ongoing project, the objective of this paper is to describe the application of the Activat project inside the current Business Administration degree curriculum and its implementation throughout the academic year 2019/2020.

Keywords:

Active learning, Cross-Curricular Competences, Problem-Based Learning, Higher education.