Perceptions of faculty and academic leaders regarding the assessment of competencies in higher education: Consensus and dissension

© Common Ground Publishing, Juana-María Tierno-García, Georgeta Ion, Elena Cano-García, Maite Fernández-Ferrer, All Rights Reserved. The first promotions of university graduates within the framework of the European Higher Education Area provide an opportunity to study how the shift towards competency-based designs has been produced, and, in particular, what type of evaluation activities have been the most used and their impact on students' learning. This article presents a study undertaken with 165 faculty members and seventeen academic leaders belonging to seven Spanish public universities and four different degrees in order to find points of agreement and disagreement with regard to competencyevaluation. The results show that there is a consensus between the faculty members and academic leaders regarding the evaluation with respect to the most appropriate methodologies and concerning the importance of continuous evaluation. There is also agreement with respect to the obstacles identified: the necessity for cultural change and teacher training, particularly with regard to evaluation, and, finally, the lack of involvement of the stakeholders.