Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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Figure 1: Percentage of competences
Figure 2: Percentage of subjects developing development grouped by years and each competence
specialization fields.
According to figures 1 and 2, we can point out that according to lecturers’ point of view,
the most valuable competence is GC-4, which should be developed in near 90 % of the
subjects belonging to the degree as well as from 1st year subjects on. Generic competences
GC-11 and GC-10 should also be developed in more than 50 % of subjects. GC-9 is only
developed in 4th year, whereas GC-6 competence is most developed in 2nd year (55% of
subjects). Competences GC-2, GC-3, GC-7, GC-8 and GC-9 are developed from 2nd year on,
which is totally reasonable because these competences are supposed to need more
experience in the engineering field to be developed in a suitable way.
As far as the level of achievement to be reached in each competence is concerned, we must
remark that common sense tells that this level should be increased as the degree moves
forward, that is to say, it is desirable that in first year subjects this level is no more than
level 2. In the same way, last years subjects should develop the top level of competence
achievement. The following figure shows the evolution of the level of achievement for
competence GC-4 along the years and subjects.
In figure 3, we see that competence GC-4 is developed homogeneously all along all the four
years, whereas competence GC-3 is developed fundamentally in third and four years.
Concerning CG-3, it is developed along levels, for example, levels 1 and 2 will be those that
the student should reach in first and second year. Those subjects which develop it (8.70 %
of the total) will have to relate specific knowledge of the specific competences to the
analysis and synthesis of acquired knowledge, which allow them to identify problems and
to use this acquired knowledge to solve problems. The development of this competence in
3rd and 4th years will reach levels 3, 4 and 5. GC-4 has a similar behaviour because the
subjects developing this competence will work the 3 levels of development, but with a
gradual increase in the difficulty of the problems. Levels 4 and 5 will be necessary in last
years; nevertheless, lecturers will have to introduce the concepts in previous subjects to
make students aware of the importance of both efficiency and cost analysis in the
development of software.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011