
Assessing Generic Competence Development among Higher Education Students
Author(s) -
Ashfaque Ahmad Shah,
Muhammad Sarwar,
Shafqat Ali Shah
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
pakistan journal of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2413-8517
pISSN - 1818-3344
DOI - 10.30971/pje.v34i1.183
Subject(s) - cluster sampling , competence (human resources) , higher education , psychology , medical education , mathematics education , data collection , population , pedagogy , medicine , sociology , political science , demography , social psychology , social science , law
Present study intended to assess the generic competences of higher education students. Self-perceived level of generic competences of the students in the beginning and the end of an academic session was recorded to explore the role of higher education in imparting them the generic competences. All the students entering the University of Sargodha (Pakistan) during 2012, constituted the population of the study. Cluster sampling technique was used to carry out the panel survey. The same cohort of the students was surveyed twice over a period of one academic year. This study adopted a version of the Reflex Project instrument, consisting of 19 competences, to collect data from students of both genders in public-sector universities in Pakistan. Data were collected from 932 students (cluster sampling) studying at 10 (randomly) selected departments. There were 408 male and 525 female students in the study. The students rated themselves on a seven-point scale whose reliability was 0.82. The results indicated that higher education played its role in imparting and promoting the existing set of generic competences from the beginning to the end of the academic session; but the increase in the competence level was noted only to a modest level. Gender differences were found among the students in a few of the generic competences.