The acquisition of competences in transnational education through the ePortfolio

Abstract

An educational transformation, characterized by ICTs, programs that transcend national borders, and progress measured by acquisition of competences, is burgeoning. In this study, Spanish university students in a Preschool and Primary School Education Degree Program participated in an international service-learning project and used an electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) to document and assess the acquisition of the competences specified in the undergraduate education degree program. Participants completed a survey in which they evaluated how the use of ePortfolio helped them to acquire these competences. Though responses to the survey were consistently positive across all competences, a principal component analysis identified the following three dimensions, listed in order of eigenvalue: acquisition and use of ICTs, problem solving, and global considerations. Our results seem to indicate that both the key competences and subject-specific competences prescribed by the degree program in which the participants were enrolled, were indeed acquired. It is interesting to note, however, that the gains were in a proximal distal pattern, with global considerations being the component that accounted for the least variance among the three dimensions identified, though it reflects the transnational nature of the learning.