Abstract:

Within a context of global hyperconnection, in the field of Architecture, educational institutions and accreditation bodies, such as the American accreditation agency, the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), have established new objectives to meet the demands of the business sector, highlighting the important role played by Lifelong Learning and learning based on competency modules.

The business sector has been forced to adapt to a new paradigm, going from requiring mainly technical knowledge to needing specific and transversal competence as a means to guarantee resilience in the face of change in its human potential and the new needs of the national and international market.

Within this field, there is a clear need for professionals with socioemotional and leadership skills, who provide resilience and value to the team they join. Experience has also shown that the development of these socioemotional competences is directly related to personal and professional success. Specifically at the business level, these skills favor innovation in business models, improving business competitiveness and enhancing leadership. However, it is not possible to speak of a single most important or preferred socioemotional competency, given that the specific weight -or importance- of each socioemotional skill or competency is deeply linked to each economic sector and specific activity, as well as to the geographical location, cultural patterns or even to aspects of the temporal reality we are dealing with.

Among these socioemotional competencies we can name empathy, leadership, social responsibility, motivation and self-efficacy. However, although these competences are interrelated and draw on each other, we would like to focus on self-efficacy. Self-efficacy can be defined as the confidence we have in our abilities to implement certain actions and achieve a goal. Therefore, it is the process of assimilation and assertive application of a series of transversal competences.

In the academic field, self-efficacy acts on motivation, persistence and academic success. Although this is a widely discussed topic, there are no references specifically related to architecture or technical education.

It is, therefore, a matter of carrying out a compilation of existing methodologies, focused on other subjects, and adapting them to the teaching of architecture. Moreover, there are few studies on how this competence is related to the professional world, why it is necessary and how to develop it. These are the questions that this research aims to answer.

Keywords:

Self-efficacy, socioemotional competences, Architecture, abilities.