Abstract:

Higher education in Portugal encompasses two different subsystems (universities and polytechnic institutes) and two distinctive sectors (public and private). While university institutions is supposed to train professionals in a knowledge base, it is the responsibility of the polytechnic institutes to support their teaching, favoring the development of their students' professional competences.

The quality and qualification of the human resources are central for the organizations to fulfill their aims and to be successful. Decision-making, among others, is a key competence of decision-makers. This assumption points toward that organizations make a careful and careful choice of their decision makers.

The Tuning project is a development platform for a set of comparable and mutually compatible qualifications between the three study cycles described in terms of workload, level, learning outcomes, skills and profile. Regarding the "Decision Making" competency and under the orientation of Dublin Descriptors the learning outcomes per cycle of studies are:
In the first cycle, students should demonstrate problem solving skills within their area of study, as well as to build and substantiate their own arguments; ability to collect, select and interpret relevant information that enables them to base the solutions they recommend and the judgments they issue, including in the analysis the relevant scientific and ethical social aspects.
For the second cycle, they suggest that students demonstrate the ability to integrate knowledge, deal with complex issues, develop solutions or make judgments in situations of limited or incomplete information, including reflections on the ethical and social implications and responsibilities that result in or condition these solutions and these judgments.
For the third cycle, doctoral degree, the objectives are to enable the student to critically analyze, evaluate and synthesize new and complex ideas.

In view of the objectives proposed by the Dublin Descriptors and the reality of higher education system in Portugal, this paper intends to evaluate the learning objectives, as far as "decision-making" competence is concerned, in the three study cycles in force in Portugal, with statistical analysis of the data provided by SPSS, regarding the current learning objectives of the courses accredited and re-accredited by A3ES (NCE and ACEF).

As results, it is expected to validate whether the learning outcomes regarding decision making competence are aligned with the objectives proposed in the Dublin Descriptors.

Keywords:

Decision making, higher education, learning outcomes, dublin descriptors.