ASSESSMENT OF TRANSVERSAL COMPETENCES IN ENGINEERING DEGREES. APPLICATION TO THE BACHELOR’S THESIS

In the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) it is necessary to guarantee that at the end of the degree specific and transversal competences have been acquired.

The institutional project of Transversal Competence of the Universitat Politècnica de València (TC-UPV) carries out a classification in 13 competences, worked through three different ways (degree subjects, Bachelor´s Thesis (BT)/Master´s Thesis (MT) and extracurricular activities) and in different mastery levels.

BT and MT do not have a methodology that systematizes the identification, analysis and the assessment of the competences, among other reasons, for the wide spectrum of subjects studied. In this latter case, the tutor shall be responsible for performing this work.

The Department of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering, provides teaching in the following degrees: Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering, Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering, Bachelor’s Degree in Energy Engineering, Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Organization Engineering, Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering and various master's degrees. More than 40 BTs have been managed during the last academic years in the department, focusing on applications of nuclear energy, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

In order to detect the main problems that students face in the development of their BTs has been performed the present work. After the tutoring experience gained and through the analysis of different surveys outcomes, it was concluded that effort should be reinforced in the following transversal competences: time management, effective communication, analysis and practical thinking. So, the department has designed specific rubrics of these competences which has been distributed to those students who completed the previous surveys to verify their suitability from the student's point of view. Considering the obtained results, it has been concluded that a high percentage of the students contemplate that having these rubrics may have been of great help to guide them in the realization of their BT.