Assessing the development of student generic competences in education-related university degrees.

The past decade has seen a rise in the interest of policy-makers in the topic of key competences in the field of Higher Education. New guidelines for the development of student competences have been set out, both at European and national level, mainly aiming to facilitate the adaptation of the students to the demands of the labour market. Our research aims to verify whether these guidelines are actually being put into practice in Higher Education institutions by assessing the level of self-reported competence development among students of education-related degrees from the University of Salamanca. Through the administration of the COMPES questionnaire to a sample of 819 students, we intend to study whether there are any significant changes in the level of student competences according to the year, and also if this level is significantly different among the four degrees under study as well as the gender of the students. The hypothesis testing shows significant differences in 36 out of the 37 items according to the variable year. There are also some differences when controlling for the gender and degree.