GUIDE FOR THE COMPETENCE-BASED EVALUATION OF THE FINAL DEGREE WORK IN THE CHEMICAL ENGINEERING BACHELOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CADIZ

The aim of this work is to develop a document that specifies what, how and when the Final Degree Work (Trabajo Fin de Grado, in Spanish) is evaluated. Besides the means and instruments that must be used for the evaluation and the agents who take part in the process are also evaluated.

This work is part of the Actions Supported for the Educational Improvement, Training of the Teaching Staff and Diffusion of Results of the UCA (2011/12) and it tries to give fulfillment to the commitment established in the memory of the Degree in Chemical Engineering, where it can be read: "As is indicated in the RD1393 (…) the Final Degree Work constitutes an obligatory matter inside the Bachelor Degree and must be focused on the evaluation of competences associated to the title (…) Its defense with a dissertation before an examining board is an indispensable requirement to obtain the title". In addition, the official guide of the subject displays: "It will be evaluated the written document (memory), the presentation and the oral defense of the work, which will be exposed opposite to a specifically designated examining board, which will evaluate the acquired competences, knowledge, capacities and skills. (…) The specific criteria of qualification will depend on the concrete tests of evaluation and will come defined in the guides of the subjects (…) The Departments, by means of his Educational Equipments -following the proposals of their Councils- will fix in the Educational Annual Guide the concrete weight for every instrument used in the evaluation, as well as the typology, methods and characteristics of the system of evaluation that it proposes (...)".

In order to fulfill those objectives, a workgroup constituted by eleven teachers of the Dpt. of Chemical Engineering and Food Technology of the UCA has been formed. We are proposing a Guide, as an objective instrument which can be used for all the agents involved in the process of evaluation of the Final Degree Work, and that will be also available for students in advance.

This type of tool has been already developed by different universities (1). Nevertheless, every Education Center or title must personalize it depending on its aims (2). In the proposed guide, based on the work realized by Valderrama and col. (2009)(3), a card for every competence defined in the memory for the current subject (Trabajo Fin de Grado) has been developed. Each card includes the following items:

-A description of the competence
-A set of indicators for its compliance
-The stage where they must be avaluated
-The agents involved in the evaluation
-The criteria for qualification
-The indicators grading system

As input of the working group, a spreadsheet to systematize the process of evaluation/qualification has been built-up.

References:
1. Guía para la evaluación de competencias en los Trabajos de Fin De Grado y de Máster en las Ingenierías. © Agència per a la Qualitat del Sistema Universitari de Catalunya.
http://www.aqu.cat/ publicacions/guies_competencies/guia_tfe_enginyeries_es.html
2. Pautas y materiales para la renovación metodológica de la docencia universitaria. Grupo GIDOCUZ. Universidad de Zaragoza.
http://ice.unizar.es/gidocuz/calidad/presentacion_01.php.
3. La evaluación de competencias en los Trabajos Fin de Estudios. E. Valderrama, y col. XV JENUI. Barcelona, 8-10 de julio de 2009. ISBN: 978-84-692-2758-9. http://jenui2009.fib.upc.edu/