Abstract:

This paper is part of an Educational Improvement Plan (PIME) devised with the purpose of improving students’ learning outcomes of the Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship transversal competence at Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). In particular, it belongs to its first phase which aims to diagnose the starting point of the transversal competence by collecting information on methodologies and activies developed in the classroom, assessment tools used and learning outcomes achieved. To this end, three research strategies have been applied at UPV: a thorough study of the teaching guides, a student survey and interviews to lecturers. This study focuses on the lecturers’ point of view and teaching experience regarding Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship transversal competence.

Within the qualitative paradigm, a structured question guide has been designed, with open questions related to the difficulties found in terms of integrating the competence in the subject, the support found for its development, its relevance for the degree programme involved, students’ interest in entrepreneurship, description of the activities carried out and evidence collected. Furthermore, details about the tools used for assessing the competence and potential improvements have been asked, and also achievement in terms of learning outcomes. 20 to 30 minutes structured interviews have been carried out with a total of 26 lecturers belonging to 7 school centres from different departments. This sample of lecturers teach 21 undergraduate subjects considered checkpoints of the transversal competence. The analysis of these interviews will allow to discover best practices and to identify improvement needs. These will be valuable resources for developing the second stage of the Educational Improvement Plan.

Keywords:

Creativity, Educational improvement plan, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Lecturers, Qualitative methodology, Transversal competence.