Design and Evaluation of Basic Generic Skills for University and Business

Abstract

The formative development of generic skills is necessary in any field, and accordingly, these skills are becoming increasingly supported in education and sought after by businesses. The objective of this article is to present and validate the scores of an instrument used to measure basic generic skills. This was achieved by first defining the construct of generic skills and then identifying the underlying dimensions, subdimensions, and indicators, and preparing the items. The final version of the questionnaire was administered to a sample of 547 freshman college students in the Community of Madrid. The analyses indicate that the scores of the questionnaire are reliable and valid, and support the theoretical model. The findings show an adequate questionnaire that can be used to measure the development of basic generic skills and assess education provided in this respect.

Keywords

• competences
• skills development
• higher education