Gaps in perception of contribution of generic skills among students in Chile

Abstract

Generic or transversal competences are professional capacities that cover the general aspects of the professional future in the world of work. These are closely related to creative thinking and emotional intelligence, and are useful in any discipline or field of work. The objective of this study is to identify the gaps or biases that may exist in the perception of students of Law, Business Engineering and Nursing careers at the Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello in Chile, regarding the contribution of generic skills in their training. academic. It focused on a quantitative, non-experimental field study where the non-parametric method called the Kruskal-Wallis test or H test was used in 1,272 students. Firstly, the differences between students of the different degrees have been analysed, and then a comparison has been made between those in the first and fifth years of the same degree. As the most significant findings, when comparing the first and fifth year students of Law and Business Engineering, there were differences in the perception of the contribution of all the competencies, and in Nursing only the generic competencies of ethical behavior, scientific and quantitative reasoning, work teamwork and social responsibility showed differences.