In the framework of the European Higher Education area, university teaching has focused in recent years on adapting Master's and Bachelor's degrees to the demands of the professional sector. To this end, the training and development of generic and specific competences recommended for the incorporation of students into the job-market have been priority objectives in the planning of study plans. However, there is no general consensus on the methodologies for evaluating these competencies, especially regarding how to separate the acquisition and/or improvement of the generic competences from the knowledge and specific abilities of the subjects. Furthermore, the tight number of teaching hours to complete the syllabi of the subjects cannot be ignored, added to the greater number of continuous assessment tests. That is why the teaching staff looks for methodologies that do not involve additional tests for the evaluation of competences, avoiding the reduction of the syllabus.In order to make a contribution in this regard, this work presents an approach for the evaluation of the ability to handle specific software applied to problems in the mechanical engineering area. This document states that, in order to acquire the skills required by the Specific Instrumental competence in the case of structural integrity analysis and design software such as ANSYS®, prior training is required in the use of such software. The hypothesis also considers that the way to evaluate the acquisition of this competence is through the autonomous realisation of a lab at the end of the subject. Some conclusions will be gathered from the results obtained with a view to optimising our proposal in future courses.
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