El desarrollo de competencias genéricas en la educación técnica de nivel superior: un estudio de caso

The present study aims to improve the understanding of the process of the acquisition and development of generic skills in post-secondary vocational programs, according to the students' visions and perceptions. Through a qualitative phenomenological-type case study, at the largest higher education vocational institution in Chile, eight vocational students were tracked for three years, in order to inquire about their perceptions on the effectiveness of the learning process and the pedagogical practices used by their teachers to develop generic skills. The results suggest that the development of generic skills depends mainly on: (a) the skills' foundation that the student has upon entering the institution; (b) the degree of skills' proficiency on the part of the teacher, the specification of the learning objectives and to what extent they are able to inspire student interest; (c) how significant and challenging the activities designed to work on generic skills are, and d) their degree of contextualization to the work environment.