Effects on the Students' Personal Competences of the Usage of PBL Methodologies in Professional Reality Simulation Environments: Students, Teachers, Graduates and Eemployers´ Perceptions

Abstract

Trying to ensure that every student who enters the work market bears a set of personal attributions acknowledged as essential, higher education institutions (HEIs) have been being confronted with the need to activate new ways to produce and disclosure knowledge, compatible with the transition form an educational to a work environment. This research analyses the effects on the development of the students’ personal competences of the PBL methodologies in a simulation environment for the business reality. Setting off from a case study of a vocational HEI, we resorted to the interview technique with teachers and employers and the questionnaire technique with the students and graduates. Students, graduates and teachers support that the PBL methodologies contribute for the further development of personal competences, mainly at the level of resource use (management, planning and work methodology) and at the level of knowledge construction (critical analysis, grounds for decisions and initiative). By the employers, one can easily detect a persistent trend not to acknowledge the PBL methodologies as directly responsible for an improvement of the graduates’ personal competences, with the exception of the valorisation of more consistent grounds and more confident attitudes