Generic Competences in Higher Education After Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper aims to analyse whether acquisition of students' generic competences has been influenced by Covid-19 pandemic in an online higher education environment. In order to analyse these effects we present an empirical study to know the influence of Covid-19 pandemic in generic competences of business and economics students. A quantitative analysis is conducted in a sample of 221 students from the online bachelor's degree programme on Business and Economics at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. The analyses show that the achievement of most part of competences has been affected by the pandemic, but in different levels. Moreover, the analyses also show which competences are affected in higher levels and which one in lower levels. Moreover the study analyses the possible differences depending on whether the students were at the beginning of the studies or at the end. The key finding is the effect of Covid-19 pandemic on generic competences, which creates an opportunity to undertake actions to address the lowest achieved and to generate strategies in order to adapt to this new situation. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Generic competences and learning results during the COVID-19 pandemic: a comparative study

The paper has a dual aim: first, to study the effect the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the development of students' generic competences and learning outcomes;and second, to analyse the observed differences between these two elements depending on whether the students' teaching-learning environment of origin was face-to-face or online. To analyse the effect the pandemic has had, data were collected on the students enrolled in two universities with different methodologies, one face-to-face and one online. A descriptive analysis and comparison of means were carried out using questionnaires designed to collect information on students' perception of the effect of the pandemic on their generic competences and learning results, depending on the environment of origin. The results confirm that the pandemic has affected the development of students' generic competences, despite students themselves considering that they have met their learning objectives. Furthermore, the teaching-learning environment of origin influences both variables, with differences observed between face-to-face and online university students.