Departament d'Humanitats i Ciències de l'Educació

As we enter the 21st century, the social dimension of Higher Education is one of the key elements in university policies. Among measures aimed at retaining students, scholarship and study grant policies help to ensure equality. In Spain, the establishment of the Study Aid Programme (PAE) for degree studies is an outstanding innovative initiative. This study is aimed at assessing the importance of the PAE as an economic factor in equity, access and academic performance in the fi rst year at university. The data used is that available on all students who began degree studies at Abat Oliba CEU University from the 2009-10 academic years to the 2015-16 academic years. The results confi rm that obtaining a scholarship becomes an incentive that infl uences key aspects for persistence, such as the degree of eff ort and educational commitment with positive results on students’ performance.

INTRODUCCIÓN. Esta investigación tiene como objetivo indagar en la percepción que tienen los ocupadores del ámbito de la educación secundaria sobre las competencias del profesorado recién graduado, con la finalidad de articular las demandas formativas de los centros con la formación universitaria, al tiempo que incidir en la mejora de esta última. MÉTODO. El trabajo se ha llevado a cabo a partir del análisis de la base de datos del estudio Ocupadors a l’àmbitd’Ensenyament, realizado a finales de 2015 por la AQU. Fueron encuestados 281 centros educativos de Cataluña, de los cuales nos centraremos en los 69 centros de enseñanza secundaria y, especialmente, en los 34 centros que incorporaron docentes graduados recientemente. RESULTADOS. La técnica estadística multivariante del Análisis Factorial Exploratorio ha permitido, por una parte, identificar las competencias con más peso en el modelo factorial y, por otra, agrupar las competencias en factores independientes entre ellos. El modelo factorial resultante está compuesto por cuatro dimensiones que han sido analizadas según su importancia, satisfacción y margen de mejora: (1) competencias instrumentales y técnicas; (2) competencias pedagógicas; (3) competencias para la interdisciplinariedad, y (4) competencias sistémicas. DISCUSIÓN. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto que tanto las pedagógicas como las sistémicas son las competencias que presentan un mayor margen de mejora en la formación inicial. Otro resultado reseñable es la especial importancia que atribuyen a las competencias para la interdisciplinaridad. Ambas cuestiones nos invitan a reflexionar sobre el perfil del docente de secundaria —disciplinar o polivalente—, así como con la formación en competencias de este profesorado.

The aim of this article is to investigate the academic and labor transition process of stu-dents in master’s degree programs in education at two Brazilian universities: Universidade do Desenvolvimento de Santa Catarina and Universidade do Vale do Itajaí. To this end, student profiles, the factors that motivate them to choose the program, and their expecta-tions regarding training and labor opportunities are explored. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire with open and closed questions. In both groups, labor market requirements, pursuing an academic career, and improving and reorienting career paths were identified as motivating factors for entering the master’s programs. Based on the survey data, it is concluded that relationships with colleagues and professional growth were the main benefits of completing the degree. However, the majority of students considered dropping out at some point due to the demanding requirements of the courses. Even so, the respondents indicated that the master’s degree is an essential stage of their training and a means to achieving professional fulfillment.

The university is an essential institution for the progress and modernization of society. The higher education sector has seen growing demand in recent decades, as well as a progressive internationalization. This implies greater possibilities to choose between universities and greater competitiveness among these institutions. In recent years, we have observed growing interest in developing university quality rankings. Accordingly, the main objective of our research is to propose a model for obtaining rankings with optimal properties: a ranking of universities according to teaching output, research output and global output will be established, to classify all universities, regardless of their size or their public or private nature. The multi-strategic methodology is applied from a systemic approach combining quantitative elements from a global and specific perspective of Ibero-American universities. A database has been developed that includes indicators and ratios based on information from the MECD and the National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (CNEAI): teaching productivity, research productivity and overall productivity for each university. This ranking provides some novel indicators that would favor the appearance of new universities absent in the current rankings, a series of indicators that do not take into account volume, but rather performance. The results indicate that the impact of the Teaching dimension is greater because this is the dimension in which universities that do not currently appear in the rankings could stand out.