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.
The international accreditation of the programmes for the masters' and bachelors' degrees offered at our university, together with the demands of the employers, have made it clear that the students' curricula should specify not only what they have studied, but also what they are actually able to do. Although, in the recent years the competence based curricula approach has been used in the development of the new masters' and bachelors' degree programmes within the European Higher Education Area, the assessment of the generic competences is still a pending matter. This work presents an 'outcomes' approach for the assessment of the capacity for critical thinking within subjects related to mechanical engineering. In particular, this paper proposes a methodology in order to quantify the level of achievement and shows one tool developed for that purpose. The tool is based on the evaluation of some learning outcomes that can be observed by asking the students about different issues related to the contents of the course. Conclusions about preliminary results and the difficulties found to create this tool are also described here.
Over the last few years there is a high interest in developing new curricular programmes of the European Higher Education Area that adapt their masters' and bachelors' degrees to the demands of the employers. The international accreditation of these programmes is not limited to the evaluation of the subjects within the degrees, it also scores the generic and specific competences that will be achieved by the students. These competences are thought to evaluate what the students are actually able to do and therefore, they are useful not only to adapt the degrees to the existing European working model, but also to facilitate the students' incorporation into it. Nevertheless, the methodologies for the assessment of these competences are still a pending task that requires more learning experience. In order to contribute to the progress of this topic, this work presents an 'outcomes' approach for the assessment of the students' ability to use the techniques, skills and tools for engineering related practical issues within mechanical engineering subjects. In particular, this paper designs individual questionnaires for IT and laboratory practices in order to quantify the domain level of the students in the usage of a commercial software and in the comprehension of technical and instrumental concepts. These tools are based on the evaluation of some learning outcomes that can be observed by using different strategies along the academic year. Some results regarding a first attempt to use this tool are also analysed in this paper. Finally, some conclusions are derived from these experiences in order to improve our proposal in the future.
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