Abstract:

The new 21st Century Skills competence approach involves offering a holistic and systemic vision of how redefine students' education throughout their academic career. That vision offers a range of competencies to be identified and promoted by universities. In particular, the non-cognitive competencies included in the Learning and Innovation Skills, known as the 4 C's (creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration) are gaining special relevance. It is still unclear the role of these competencies in the university development of students. Therefore, the focus of this study is twofold: to identify the 4 C's competencies in incoming university students and to evaluate their relevance in the academic achievement during the first year of university. To reach that goal, a sample of 523 Spanish first-year university students responded to questionnaires assessing the 4 C’s competencies. Then, the academic performance reached after the first semester of their first academic year was evaluated. The data were analyzed through a correlation analysis and based on the results a performance prediction model was proposed for three groups of students distinguished by their previous performance: low, middle and high achievers. The results from correlating the non-cognitive competences and the academic performance indicated weak relationships between the latter and both communication (r = .174; p < .001) and critical thinking (r = .168; p < .001), as well as non-significant relationships with both collaboration (r = .032; p > .05) and creativity (r = -.011; p > .05). The only variable predicting academic performance (f2 = .04) was critical thinking (β = .14; p < .05). When classifying students according to their previous performance the only competence predicting achievement in low achievers (f2 = .10) was communication (β = .31; p < .05); while in high achievers, the only relevant competence in the model (f2 = .10) was critical thinking (β = .28; p < .05). Any competence was relevant (f2 = .02) in the group of middle achievers (β = .14; p < .05). These results confirmed the relevance of two out of the four competencies included in the baseline model which seem to have a differential role according to the students' prior performance. Implications of the results are discussed as well as the need of collecting additional data to evaluate the relevance of these competences in higher academic years. In addition, the relevance of other non-cognitive competencies should be studied from the holistic approach of 21st Century Skills.

Keywords:

21st Century Skills, non-cognitive competencies, academic performance, prediction, first-year students.