Teachers' needs for teaching in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA): The case of the University of Seville

The paper presents some findings of a research study conducted at the University of Seville. One of the aims of the study was to stablish the main needs of in-service training and institutional support, as perceived by teaching staff of the University of Seville, with respect to the demands made on them by the methodological changes in teaching included in the principles of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Qualitative (focus groups) and quantitative (survey) research procedures have been applied to a large sample of teachers from all five university areas of knowledge to obtain their opinions with respect to perceived deficiencies in the four basic areas of teaching: teaching planning, developing new teaching methodologies, assessing acquisition of competencies, and tutoring students' learning process. The data analyses point to specific teaching difficulties (or in-service training needs) primarily related with teaching management of professional competencies in the new context: accurate identification of competencies, adequate selection of related contents for its acquisition, and knowledge of techniques to assess competencies.