Design and Validation of a Questionnaire for University Students’ Generic Competencies (COMGAU)

Abstract

University, as a social institution as defined in the European Higher Education Area, must be a benchmark in the preparation for beginning employment and education for the exercise of active citizenship. Therefore its functions include the development of knowledge and skills needed for appropriate personal performance in various social and professional arenas. This education is complex and requires bringing together specific and generic (or transversal) competencies. The fundamental aim of this study is to present the construction and validation of a questionnaire for evaluating generic competencies acquired via practical service-learning education and the potential employability of university students. Empirical analysis of the reliability and validity of the instrument was performed with a sample of 564 university students (67.2% women), aged between 18 and 59 years old, although with the majority between 18 and 22 (M = 20.96). Following exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, as well as analysis of the items and the internal consistency of the scale, the results allow us to conclude that the internal consistency and validity of the Questionnaire on University Students’ Generic Competencies are satisfactory. The proposed measurement model incorporates various prior theoretical contributions, and offers a complementary scale that may contribute to advancing research into service-learning and employability.

Ethical Principles of Social Educator Activity

“…regulatory component (professional-ethical culture as a system of professional-ethical qualities that are a regulator of social educator relations); normative component (professional and ethical culture as a set of professional norms, relations and standards of behaviour); an educational component (professional and ethical culture as a factor that forms the moral culture of a participant in professional interaction); axiological component (professional and ethical culture as a process of creation, preservation and assimilation of professional and ethical values) (Regueiro et al, 2021).…”

International Service-Learning for forest fire management and employability in higher education: a qualitative research

“…For the purposes of this inquiry, the researchers utilized the COMGAU Generic Competency Scale as a point of reference for the operational definition of soft skills which helped formulate some of the questions posed in the second part of the interview. The COMGAU groups 17 skills into five competency groups and is related to micro, meso and macro dimensions of employability (Regueiro, Rodríguez-Fernández, Crespo, & Pino-Juste, 2021). These resources were developed within the context of research projects on S-L, employability and higher education coordinated by researchers of the ESCULCA Research Group at the University of Santiago De Compostela.…”

The generic skills learning systematic: Evaluating university students’ learning after complex problem-solving

“…Examples are laboratory skills for researching cells or didactic skills to motivate a group of university students. When a skill is usable and beneficial in a variety of domains, situations, and contexts, researchers often use terms like professional skills, transferable skills, soft skills, employability skills, personal skills, and generic skills (Bennett et al, 1999;Raybould and Sheedy, 2005;Shuman et al, 2005;Andrews and Higson, 2008;Matteson et al, 2016;Jääskelä et al, 2018;Touloumakos, 2020;Regueiro et al, 2021;Santos Rego et al, 2021). What these skills exactly entail or refer to is not agreed upon in the literature (Jääskelä et al, 2018).…”

“…The generic skills learning systematic: Evaluating university students' learning after complex problem-solving Introduction Education has the task of developing students to be valuable for a changing society and labour market, as well as to fulfil societal needs (Ramaley, 2014). The industry often asks for professionals with generic skills that are applicable in different working environments and in society in general (Chamorro-Premuzic et al, 2010;Regueiro et al, 2021). A broader skill set appears to be necessary for a technological, competitive, and global 21st century workforce (Nealy, 2005) and to be able to deal with wicked problems (Berg et al, 2021).…”