Abstract:

High education teaching-learning processes should be defined according to the characteristics of the current context, in which universities and organization have changed to adapt them to the European Convergence. In this sense, not only acquiring the knowledge inherent in each degree is important, but also the learning by generic, specific and transversal skills is a priority. In particular, transversal skills are considered a key to the future work life of the graduates since they are related to the acquisition of soft skills and abilities and both are perceived as a common space in the map of degrees of the Universities. The way to articulate this new system based on skills in the curriculum of Spanish degrees and masters consists of assigning skills to each degree or master and then, coordinate the subjects and people which will be responsible of their development and evaluation. Transversal skills have been decided by each university through the exercise of their autonomy. These, once approved by the competent committee, they are included in all Bachelor Degrees in at least one subject. In Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) 13 transversal skills have been defined. These are: CT-01: Comprehension and integration, CT-02: Application and practical thinking, CT-03: Analysis and problem solving, CT-04: Innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, CT-05: Design and project, CT-06: Teamwork and Leadership, CT-07: Ethical, environmental and professional responsibility, CT-08: Effective Communication, CT-09: Critical Thinking, CT-10: Knowledge of contemporary problems, CT-11: Life-long learning, CT-12: Planning and time management and CT-13: Specific instruments.

The aim of this work is to analyze the distribution of transversal skills at the Universitat Politècnica de València. We focus our research in six Bachelor Degrees, which are: Degree in Tourism, Degree in Audiovisual Communication, Degree in Business Administration and Management, Degree in Public Administration and Management, Degree in Industrial Technologies Engineering and Degree in Industrial Organization Engineering. As can be seen, four of them are integrated in the area of Social Sciences and the other two in the area of Engineering, specifically in the Industrial Engineering field. This diversity allows to enrich the possibilities of the analysis of the presented study and to present comparative results of both educational areas.

In order to achieve the proposed objective, the methodology defined consists of a website enquire of the curricula of each degree. Thus, for each degree, the last syllabus of each subjects have been consulted. The information in relation to transversal skills was collected in an Excel sheet for further analysis.

Data analysis gives us information about which is or which are the transversal skills most assigned in each degree as well as in total, i.e. analyzing the group of the six studied degrees. It will be described if these results present tendencies according to the different areas of knowledge, Staff Structure responsible for title or type of subjects. In the same way the number of transversal skills assigned to the subjects for each degree is analyzed looking for patterns of regular distribution or in their absence analyzing the causes of missing. This paper establishes a diagnosis of the situation in which the distribution of transversal skills in the mentioned environment is found.

Keywords:

Transversal skills, bachelor degree, european convergence.