INVESTIGACIÓN CUALITATIVA APLICADA EN EL DESARROLLO DE LA PRÁCTICA PROFESIONAL SUPERVISADA

Se describen los procedimientos pedagógicos utilizados en el curso BGE215 Práctica Profesional Supervisada, en la Escuela de Bibliotecología, Documentación e Información (EBDI) de la Universidad Nacional (UNA) en Costa Rica y se comparan con los métodos, técnicas e instrumentos utilizados en la investigación cualitativa. Además, se aplica la triangulación para determinar la validez de las técnicas utilizadas para evaluar la práctica profesional supervisada, realizada en la Escuela.Los Sujetos de esta investigación fueron: 22 estudiantes de bibliotecología de tercer año, 20 encargados directos y dos académicas. Los objetos analizados fueron 22 tipos diferentes de productos elaborados en la práctica, 40 Informes de estudiantes y supervisores, las fichas catalográficas elaboradas, las bases de datos actualizadas. Además, se utilizaron como instrumentos en la recolección de la información hojas de cotejo, diario de visitas, entrevistas, informes impresos y orales, opiniones y la observación. 

How to Achieve Professional Skills in Higher Education?

During the last decade, higher education has tried to focus education on the achievement of professional skills. It is interesting to see how the learning strategies implemented may facilitate or make more difficult the achievement of competencies. By dealing with the challenge of a competency-based education approach, higher education points out the need of knowing how to build such competencies, i.e. how to design a learning strategy. Not much importance has been given to this issue, probably because the competencies can be confused with abilities, skills and attitudes and, therefore, the model can be associated to in- or out-of-classroom activities without a strategy to articulate the knowledge acquired with the cultural, social and economic contexts of the community and labor spheres, i.e., as a whole (Tobón, 2005). This paper analyzes the epistemological development of the competency-based approach in higher education, focusing on the implementation of professional competencies in the Sociology degree “Licenciatura en Sociología”, in two campuses of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California: Ensenada and Mexicali. This paper describes how competencies are built and explores different theoretical trends, their conceptualization and formation, based on in-depth interviews applied to students and teachers. It provides a mixed study to understand, based on the student’s point of view, the achievements of this study program in terms of professional competencies.

Professional Autonomy. Key Competence for Teachers in Commercial Education

The way in which the teaching autonomy is materialized, considered as part of the path traveled by the teaching community on their way to become owners of the disciplinary knowledge and the required pedagogical competencies to practice their role has motivated this paper.  For success, Commercial Education requires the urgent transformation of the teaching role and the development of key competences to promote interdisciplinary integration, academic and administrative leadership and the use of contemporary pedagogies.  The level of awareness reached by the teaching group about the impact of the learning that is promoted within the educational context will allow the empowerment of the knowledge that comes from the relationship between theory and practice-key element for professional autonomy.