AUTHOR=Ciraso-Calí Anna , Martínez-Fernández J. Reinaldo , París-Mañas Georgina , Sánchez-Martí Angelina , García-Ravidá Laura B. 

TITLE=The Research Competence: Acquisition and Development Among Undergraduates in Education Sciences

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Education

VOLUME=Volume 7 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2022.836165

DOI=10.3389/feduc.2022.836165

ISSN=2504-284X

ABSTRACT=Called as one of the competences of the 21st century, research competence should help students navigate through the complexities of a continuously shifting world. The aim of this study is to analyse the acquisition and development of the research competence in a sample of 154 undergraduate students of two bachelor’s degrees of Education Sciences (Social Education and Pedagogy) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain). 
We conducted a three-phase study, in which 1) the learning outcomes related to research competences declared in the syllabi were identified and mapped, through content analysis; 2) students’ perceptions about the development of these learning outcomes were gathered through a questionnaire; and 3) guidelines to foster research competences among these undergraduates were explored, through Delphi panel technique.
The results show that communicative skills and state-of-art reviewing skills are the least present across the different courses of both degrees. In addition, the design of research competency acquisition across courses is uneven and does not seem clearly articulated. The students’ perception is consistent with the shortcomings -or disarticulation- observed in the curriculum analysis. They consider that the most poorly acquired competencies are the state-of-the-art reviewing, content knowledge and communicative skills. It seems that more emphasis is given to reflective thinking and communicative skills; but it appears necessary to strengthen the acquisition of scientific content, the search for trustworthy information. These results were discussed in two panels of experts and certain guidelines have been defined to improve the acquisition, development, and evaluation of the research competence through university training in Education Sciences.