The Berlin evaluation instrument for self-evaluated student competences

Throughout the countries involved in the Bologna process, Bachelor programmes with job-qualifying degrees are established. The participating countries agreed on a "framework of qualifications", i.e., on a list of multidisciplinary competences to be conveyed in academic courses. Furthermore, universities have to provide empirical evidence in how far their students do in fact acquire these competencies. Existing instruments of course evaluation cannot be used for this purpose because they measure the course's process instead of its outcome. Against this background we developed a 29-items-questionnaire consisting of six subscales measuring students' self-reported gains in knowledge processing, methodology/presentation competency, communication/cooperation competency, and personal competency. Following classical test theory, we tested the instrument in a sample of 2507 questionnaires. Results show sufficient reliability and the intraclass correlations confirm data aggregation on course level. A confirmatory factor analysis proves the instrument to be construct-valid, an examination of the distinction between competencies and satisfaction indicates discriminant validity.