Abstract:

Competence-based teaching has been consolidated in the university system as a more functional methodology to address the knowledge acquired by students towards the productive sector. The fact that generic competences are critical in professional development is not only beyond doubt, but they are recognised as a decisive factor in social prosperity as an overall purpose to be pursued. This explains the effort of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) within the frame of the European Higher Education Area to define 13 main competences in the development of its Bachelors' and Masters' degrees, which are linked to the degree of acquisition of the associated. This gives useful for employers to assess the suitability of candidates for the positions offered and promotes the mobility of students between universities through comparable evaluation criteria.

The topic under study is still the competence assessment: how to evaluate the students’ performance in such a way that allows them to track their progress and development? In fact, the rubrics that the UPV project provided in its institutional project were too generic to establish clear patterns for defining the evaluation strategies to be used.

In this way, the authors propose a teaching activity for the implementation of the competence of "Knowledge of Contemporary Problems" through the realisation of an industrial project developed within the subject "Design and Application of Industrial Equipment" belonging to the Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering. This competence is related to the understanding of the emergence of issues or themes related to current social, political, legal and environmental values, including their dissemination, and being able to develop the ability to "keep up to date" with everything that happens around you in your field or area of knowledge in particular, and society in general. The students can face problems of different nature in the industrial field, but all the projects have in common that the application of the techniques of this generic competence from a perspective focused on the analysis of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Industry 4.0. The projects are evaluated based on how the logistic analysis and technical solutions proposed by the students fit in both approaches that determine the global technological development agenda for the immediate future.

Around 200 academic works over two academic years (2019-20 and 2020-21) with around 600 students involved have been evaluated, in which different application techniques of the "Knowledge of Contemporary Problems" competence have been applied. The results of the assessment have been correlated with the work grade and the subject grade during the two academic years. The projects indicate that the concepts of SDG and Industry 4.0 are useful tools for its implementation to practical subjects especially related to field projects, preparing the students for their insertion in the labour market. Further analysis is needed to check if the rubrics method used is functional for this type of competence assessment and if the fact that the activities count for the subject mark can influence the results of the activities and the participation of the students in the development of this teaching activity.

Keywords:

Competence assessment, learning outcomes, knowledge of contemporary problems.