Evaluation of online tools as didactic resource in the university education

Recently, many efforts have been made in the academic world to adapt the new degrees to the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA). New technologies have been the most important factor to carry out this adaptation. In particular, the tools 2.0 have been spreading quickly, not just the Web 2.0, but even in all the educational levels. Nevertheless, it is now necessary to evaluate whether all these efforts and all the changes, carried out in order to obtain improved academic performance among students, have provided good results. Therefore, the aim of this paper is focused on studying the impact of the implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in a subject belonging to a Master from the University of Alicante in the academic year (2010-2011). In special, it is an elective course called "Advanced Visual Ergonomics" from the Master of Clinical Optometry and Vision. The methodology used to teach this course differs from the traditional one in many respects. For example, one of the resources used for the development of this course is a blog developed specifically to coordinate a series of virtual works, whose purpose is that the student goes into specific aspects of the current topic. Next, the student participates in an active role by writing a personal assessment on the blog. However, in the course planning, there is an attendance to lessons, where the teacher presents certain issues in a more traditional way, that is, with a lecture supported with audiovisual materials, such as materials generated in powerpoint. To evaluate the quality of the results achieved with this methodology, in this work the personal assessment of the students, who have completed this course during this academic year, are collected. In particular, we want to know their opinion about the used resources, as well as the followed methodology. The tool used to collect this information was a questionnaire. This questionnaire evaluates different aspects of the course: a general opinion, quality of the received information, satisfaction about the followed methodology and the student´s critical awareness. The design of this questionnaire is very important to get conclusive information about the methodology followed in the course. The questionnaire has to have an adequate number of questions; whether it has many questions, it might be boring for the student who would pay no enough attention. The questions should be well-written, with a clear structure and message, to avoid confusion and an ambiguity. The questions should be objectives, without any suggestion for a desired answer. In addition, the questionnaire should be interesting to encourage the student´ s interest. In conclusion, this questionnaire developed for this subject provided good information to evaluate whether the methodology was a useful tool to teach "Advanced Visual Ergonomics". Furthermore, the student´s opinion collected by this questionnaire might be very helpful to improve this didactic resource.

Competence profile differences among graduates from different academic subject fields: implications for improving students’ education

The aim of a university education is the intellectual development of citizens, and the training of professionals for their subsequent entry into the workforce. However, this entry into the workforce, following the theoretical education usually provided by the university, implies that students have to manage this difficult transition by themselves. Society, in a continual process of transformation, requires of universities that they adjust, adapting the education they offer to comply with the demands of society and the workplace. Socio-emotional skills would seem to have influence predicting professional performance. These skills also influence job-finding and employability. Consequently, providing teachers with an education in socioemotional competences is becoming a necessary task within universities, and the majority of teaching staff consider these skills to be fundamental to the personal and socio-emotional development of students. The objective of our proposed work is to establish the characteristic profile of competences of a sample of teachers in training, and compare it with the competences profile of graduate students belonging to the fields of law sciences, social sciences, humanities, science and technology, and health. Starting from results, implications will be derived for the development of generic competences of socio-emotional type in the framework of the European Frame of Higher Education.

Productividad científica en España sobre las profesiones de comunicación entre 1971 y 2009

A la luz de la Convergencia Europea, los títulos de grado en comunicación elaborados en España están fundamentados en las competencias requeridas para el ejercicio de cada una de las profesiones. Es necesario, pues, analizar al profesional de la Publicidad y las Relaciones Públicas, del Periodismo y de la Comunicación Audiovisual. Este trabajo pretende conocer los estudios de investigación centrados en este tema. Realiza una revisión sistemática de los artículos, libros y tesis doctorales sobre las profesiones de comunicador desde la década de los setenta hasta 2009, en las bases de datos ISOC, ISBN y TESEO. Extrae indicadores bibliométricos y sigue los criterios de evaluación mantenidos por la CNEAI (Comisión Nacional Evaluadora de la Actividad Investigadora) y la ANECA (Agencia Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad y Acreditación) para valorar las investigaciones. Los resultados muestran que es la firma del Plan Bolonia lo que parece iniciar un ciclo de atención hacia las profesiones de comunicación. Periodismo es la profesión más estudiada. La mayoría de los estudios no cumplen con los criterios de calidad de las agencias evaluadoras. En conjunto, se observa la necesidad de aumentar la cantidad y la calidad de las investigaciones para realizar planes de estudios «basados en evidencia», así como la pertinencia de fortalecer la formación de los investigadores en la metodología de la investigación social.

Assessment of Competences in the Physical Chemistry Area: Use of the Department Teaching Portfolio

Competences have become a standard learning outcome in present university education within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). In this regard, updated tools for their assessment have turned out essential in this new teaching-learning paradigm. Among them, one of the most promising tools is the “learner´s portfolio”, which is based on the gathering and evaluation of a range of evidences from the student, which provides a wider and more realistic view of his/her competence acquisition. Its appropriate use as a formative (continuous) assessment instrument allows a deeper appraisal of student´s learning, provided it does not end up as another summative (final) evaluation tool. In this contribution we propose the use of the portfolio as a unifying assessment tool within a university department (Physical Chemistry), exemplifying how the portfolio could yield both personalized student reports and averaged area reports on competence acquisition. A proposed stepwise protocol is given to organize the individual competence reports and estimate the global competence level following a bottom-up approach (i.e. ranging from the class group, subject, grade, and academic course).

Propuesta para potenciar la educación para la paz en la enseñanza superior por medio de actividades orales cooperativas

La educación para la paz ha despertado especial interés en contextos en los que los valores asociados a ésta y los derechos humanos se están viendo cercenados. En Europa, este fenómeno puede equipararse a la situación de crisis económica en la que se encuentran numerosos países. Este artículo pretende ser una contribución a la enseñanza universitaria activa que esté basada en competencias sociales y enmarcada en los principios de la educación para la paz. En este sentido, este trabajo presenta una propuesta de actividades que contribuyen a potenciar los principios y valores que propone la educación para la paz. Se expone el modo de llevar a cabo actividades orales transversales que fomenten la educación para la paz en dos asignaturas de estudios de grado de la Universidad de Alicante, Lengua Inglesa III y Lingüística General I. Como resultado de su implementación, se señala que esta metodología fomenta la adquisición de competencias sociales del alumnado entre las que destacan la resolución de conflictos, la escucha activa o la cooperación.

Evaluation of the Implementation of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) Methodology in the Didactics of the English Language in Preschool Education Course Taught in the Preschool Education Teacher Undergraduate Program at the University of Alicante

Although it is known that the Spanish current Educative System promotes using the Communicate Approach to teach foreign languages in schools, other recently designed approaches are also used to help students improve their skills when communicating in a foreign language. One of these approaches is Content and Language Integrated Learning, also known as CLIL, which is used to teach content courses using the English language as the language of instruction. This approach improves the students’ skills in English as the same time as they learn content from other areas. The goal of this thesis is to present a research project carried out at the University of Alicante during the academic year 2011-2012. With this research we obtained results that provide quantitative and qualitative data which explains how the use of the CLIL methodology affects the English level of students in the “Didactics of the English Language in Preschool Education” course in Preschool Education Teacher Undergraduate Program as students acquire the contents of the course.