Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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the results analysis of surveys carried out to company communities, qualified people and
lecturers.
We selected from that guide the main competences that our students had to develop and
we used them as the starting point to design our subjects. Along all study, surveys were
carried out to measure the development of these competences on the following courses, as
well as to estimate the importance students though they had. We studied also the specific
competences. However, we do not deal with this topic on this paper.
Competences represent a dynamic combination of knowledge, understanding, skills and
abilities. Although the Tuning Project acknowledges to the full the importance of buildingup
and developing subject specific knowledge and skills as the basis for university degree
programmes, it has highlighted the fact that time and attention should also be devoted to
the development of generic competences or transferable skills. This last component is
becoming more and more relevant for preparing students well for their future role in
society in terms of employability and citizenship. Briefly, we remark the main
characteristicas of every single type of competence:
Instrumental competences: Having an instrumental function, the main objective of these
competences is to provide students with means and methods allowing them to put
knowledge into practice in the work environment.
Interpersonal competences: as an engineer work will be developed into workgroups,
abilities to communicate and teamwork are fundamental in the success, increasing
possibilities of promotion. Solutions should be not only technically adequate but
understandable.
Systemic competences: Electrical and Electronic engineers should have the ability to
understand the social and economic context belonging to the sector in which they develop
theirs activities. For this reason, it is necessary for them to show an enterprising attitude
to find possibilities and to define objectives, together with the managing and teamwork
abilities.
Instrumental GC-1. Capacity for understanding and interpreting written information in
a critical way.
GC-2. Capacity for organization and planning.
GC-3. Oral communication in your native language.
GC-4. Ability to communicate ideas in different contexts.
GC-5. Capacity for understanding and interpreting written information in
a second language. GC-6. Written communication in your native language.
GC-7. Knowledge of a second language. GC-8. Elementary computing skills.
GC-9. Information management skills (ability to retrieve and analyse
information form different sources) GC-10. Capacity for analysis and
synthesis.
GC-11. Problem solving.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011