THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETENCES AND THE METHODS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING IN SPANISH UNIVERSITIES

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Ljubiana, Slovenia 24-26, September 2009
The development of competences at Latin-American
universities A multi-level production function
approach
Luis E. VILA, C. Delia DÁVILA and José-Ginés
MORA
University of ValenciaUniversity of Las
Palmas de Gran Canaria Institute of
Education, University of London
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Outline

• Introduction
• Production of competences in H.E.
• Proflex data
• Modeling strategies
• Some estimation results
• Concluding remarks

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1. Introduction
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H.E. the economys potential for innovation
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• Individual and aggregate productivity gains, and
  therefore growth and development, emerge from
  using in production newly available knowledge
• Schultz (1975) ? allocative ability
• Lucas (2009) ? ? in ??(t)/?t ??(t)
• H.E. contributes to build innovation potential in
  the economy via the supply of new H.E. graduates

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Innovative role of graduates
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• Fresh HEGs bring into the workplace (among other
  forms of human capital) their capacity to
  innovate
• Ability to mobilize in their jobs
  already-available knowledge/resources not
  utilized previously
• Ability to continuously create or adapt, and
  use, newly-available knowledge or resources while
  developing tasks and responsibilities in their
  jobs

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Competences to innovate (CTIs)
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• Innovative behavior implies a sequence of
  activities
• Detection, acquisition, evaluation, reallocation
• Specific competences are needed to perform well
  in the activities leading to productive
  innovation
• We will call them competences to innovate
  (CTIs)

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Innovative behavior and competences
Activities
Competences
Detection of opportunity
Alertness to new opportunities
Idea creation or acquisition
Come up with new ideas, solutions
Evaluation of new ideas
Willingness to question ideas
E.S.
Resource reallocation
Mobilization of capacities of others
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Objective and approach
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• To explore production function relationships
  between the development of innovation-related
  competences and the prevalence of diverse
  teaching and learning modes in H.E. studies
• Production of education theoretical framework
• Model-based general approach
• Data Proflex (? 8,700 graduates from 33
  Latin-American universities in 9 countries)

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Motivation
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• Stronger emphasis in the right TL modes would
  -ceteris paribus- increase the contribution of
  Higher Education to economic growth and general
  wellbeing in Latin-American countries by
  improving aggregate innovation potential through
  a more effective development of CTIs by graduates

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2. Production of competences in HE
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Literature two main views of learning
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• Early Childhood Development Knowledge
  acquisition as a cumulative process starting in
  early childhood at the household
• Education Production Function Cognitive
  achievement as the result of applying diverse
  combinations of educational inputs to students

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A model for competence production
Teaching learning modes
Educational resources ( R )
Programme characteristics
Competence development ( C )
Higher education studies
E.S.
Dedication, effort
Student resources ( R )
Prior investments
Ability
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3. Proflex data
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Table 1Field of study (ISCED 2000). Descriptive
statistics
N 8301 records
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• Questions on competences in Proflex

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• How do you rate your own competence level?
• What is the required level of competence in
  your current work?
• What was the contribution of the programme
  completed to your competence development?

• Answers to A ? Individuals human capital
• Answers to B ? Human capital needed for job
• Answers to C ? Value added by H.E. study

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Output Contribution of Higher Education to
competence development
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HE input Modes of teaching and learning
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Table 2Other variables in the analysis.
Descriptive statistics.
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4. Modeling strategies
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Estimating education production functions
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• Ability is unobserved ? Stochastic frontier
  models
• Competences correlated ? Orthogonal factors
• Subjective evaluation ? Relative measures
• Group effects / endogeneity ? Multi-level models.
• TL modes ? (Programme, X)
• Student effort ? (Modes, Programme, Z, ?)
• Programme ? (Prior achievement, Y, ?)

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Variance components model (two-level)
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Cij f ( Rij , Sij ) uj ?ij

• Composite error terms
• uj group noise N( 0, ?2u ) field,
  institution, country
• ?ij individual noise N( 0, ?2? )
• Intragroup correlation ?2u / ( ?2u ?2? )

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5. Some estimation results
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Table 3 2-level model (individual/field) for
development of CTIs
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Table 4 3-level model (individual/institution/co
untry) for development of CTIs
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6. Concluding remarks
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Summary of main results
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• Acquisition of CTIs in H.E. appears to depend on
  the prevalence of some pro-active TL modes
• Each CTI is more efficiently developed through a
  specific combination of TL modes
• Most prevalent modes in Latin-American H.E.
  contribute little, if any, to develop CTIs
  specifically
• Field of study, institution attended and country
  are crucial to development of CTIs

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Problems remaining / Further research
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• No longitudinal information on decision rules of
• Students programme choice, behavior
• Institutions study design, admission
• Policy makers regulation and funding
• Costs of teaching learning modes unknown
• Other sources of CTIs beside higher education
• Actual CTIs utilization not yet addressed

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The development of competences at Latin-American
universities A multi-level production function
approach
Thank you very much for your attention
luis.vila_at_uv.es