COMPETENCE ACHIEVEMENT THROUGH END-OF-DEGREE PROJECTS: AN ANALYSIS BY DEGREE

With the process of convergence towards the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), a new subject, known as End-of-Degree Project (EDP), has emerged after the introduction of new degree study plans. This implies that all undergraduate students must enrol in this subject to complete their study plan and also for the competences associated to each degree to be assessed. With this in mind, the aim of this research is to describe and compare the competences undergraduates reading Preschool and Primary Education develop with respect to those of Sport Sciences and Physical Education. The present document includes a sectional and descriptive study of a sample of 119 pupils who have completed and defended their End-of-Degree Project (EDP) in the Faculty of Education Sciences and Sport in the academic year 2014-2015. The pilot study analyses the level of acquisition of a number of transversal competences: “capacity for criticism and self-criticism”; “teamwork abilities”; “oral communication”; “learning to learn”; “creativity”; “excellence habits and quality in the exercise of the profession”; “capacity to understand scientific literature”; and “ICT management”, which students report they have reached in the process of completing and defending their EDP. To this end, Student’s t-test for independent samples was carried out. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS version 20.0. The level of significance was set at 5% (p<0.05) for all tests. The results of the study confirm that students consider that completing their EDP contributes to transversal competence achievement to a high degree, with the possible exception of “teamwork abilities”, whose assessment results are lower than other variables. Additionally, there are statistical differences between the degrees for the “learning to learn” and “ICT management” competences. We may conclude that the EDP develops transversal competences both in Preschool and Primary Education undergraduates and Sports Science and Education undergraduates.