TRANSVERSAL COMPETENCE EVALUATION IN THREE SUBJECTS OF THE DEGREE OF AGRONOMICAL ENGINEERING (HORTICULTURAL CROP PRODUCTION AND GARDENING) AT THE UNIVERSITAT JAUME I OF CASTELLÓN

Mediterranean Fruit Trees Production, Olive Oil Trees Production and Postharvest Technology are three optional agriculture study units offered in the last year of the degree of Agricultural Engineering (Horticultural Crop Production and Gardening) at the Universitat Jaume I de Castellón. Since academic year 2004/2005 these subjects have been included in a credit-based pilot project (II Convocatòria de Projectes Pilot per a l’Harmonització Europea de les Titulacions a la UJI) in order to adapt them for the new ECTS credit system. Nowadays the whole degree is harmonized. The possibility of introduce new evaluation methodologies for transversal competences is the last step for adaption to the Bolonia spirit. The subjects under study have a ECTS credits planning and they have been organized by generic and specific competences that should be reached through different activities such as lecture classes, classroom practices, field and enterprise visits, seminars given by the students, personal study tasks using a virtual learning environment (Moodle platform) and personal tutorials. Students were free to select which activities they wanted to follow and only the final examination was mandatory (55% final qualification). The evaluation study has been done during three academic years, with a mean of 25 students per classroom. A mean of sixty-five percent of the students in each subject selected to follow the whole planning. Five transversal competences were evaluated: time management (20% final qualification), class attendance (3%), teamwork (7%), leadership (5%) and oral skills (3%). Two types of learning methodologies have been chose for their evaluation: e-learning personal study tasks and a cooperative learning using the Aronson puzzle.
As a result, seventy five percent of the students attended class normally. Seventy percent of the students were successful in oral skills and teamwork. Sixty percent of the students had success in time management but less than fifty percent of the students were able to maintain their leadership.
As a conclusion, our students have an important lack of time management and leadership skills, which are very appreciated in work environments. It has been observed than cooperative learning efficiency decreases as the number of students increase. As teachers, we should be aware of these students lacks and try to use the proper teaching-learning methodologies in order to improve their competences.