Students’ perspectives on the assessment of attitudes and values as transversal competences in higher education

Abstract

Comprehensive education in higher education, as highlighted by the Bologna Process, is associated with training that encompasses both technical-scientific and transversal competences. Transversal competences are a set of knowledge, skills, values ​​and attitudes that have a transdisciplinary nature (responsibility, commitment, oral and written communication, autonomy and group work, ability to make agreements, among others). This qualitative research is an exploratory study based on the epistemological principles of the interpretative paradigm, which objective is to understand how teachers evaluate attitudes and values ​​as transversal competences in higher education, privileging the student's perspective. Data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews with one undergraduate and one master's student in Educational Sciences, and two undergraduate students in Psychology from a Portuguese university. The results indicate that it is possible to assess responsibility, commitment, oral and written communication through the perception of student participation in the classroom, in various situations: attendance and punctuality of the student in class; their motivation for learning through questions and interactions with peers and the teacher; when the student sends emails to the teacher with questions or suggestions; by the way they make their presentations and the quality of their slides. To assess autonomy, group work and the ability to make agreements, it is understood that the teacher can promote various group dynamics. In general, learning that achieves the formation of attitudes and values ​​as transversal competences is associated with an inclusive, dialogic assessment that is open to mutual feedback.