PERCEIVED COMPETENCES OF SPANISH UNDERGRADUATES IN THREE DIFFERENT UNIVERSITY DEGREES: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING AND STATISTICS AND BUSINESS

The paradigm underlying of the European Space for Higher Education has forced the Spanish universities to develop rapidly study programs and curricula. By using the concept of perceived competence, this work provides a quantification of the acquisition level of a set of general competences. Such competences are: oral and written communication, ability to resolve problems, ability to analyze and synthesize and autonomous work. Specifically, a survey has been carried out to the third-year undergraduate students of three degrees at the University of Jaen. Our findings suggest that, after almost completing three degree courses, the students do not feel confident about having achieved an adequate level in the generic competences studied. This could put forward the need of reinforcing them and undertaking specific formation courses for the successful performance of undergraduates as future professionals. However, we do not find that the level of perceived competences is significantly different between males and females.