Impact of COVID-19 lockdown in telecommunications engineering competency-based alumni ranking

Abstract

[EN] Higher education, as other social and economic sectors in Spain, was disrupted on 15th March 2020 following health emergency Laws enacted related to COVID-19. Non-presential lecturing was stablished country-wide until the end of the academic year 2019-20, as society was set in lockdown. In this context, it is necessary to evaluate the impact of the mandatory changes implemented in the education paradigm in order to assess the degree of acquisition of general and specific competencies altogether the acquisition of transversal competencies, as an important factor for the alumni career. This paper reports a comprehensive study on the competencies degree of acquisition considering the lockdown scenario in Spain. The results from the last four academic years have been comparatively evaluated in the core subject `Teoría de la Comunicación¿, lectured in the fourth semester of the Telecommunications Engineering Integrated Program (Bachelor and Master) in the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain, comprising data from 745 alumni. The results indicate that the degree of acquisition of technical competencies in this scenario has been adequate, being marginally better compared to previous academic year, probably due to new lecturing materials prepared. Nevertheless, the acquisition of the transversal competency `analysis and problem solving¿ exhibits degraded results, indicating inhomogeneous acquisition probably due to limitations in the group-based problem-solving practice. The results suggest that specific materials and remote lecturing strategies should be developed and implemented to guarantee adequate acquisition levels.