The research program in education involves the crystallization of concerns arising from the experience of some members of this group. Still, with a very short trajectory, this line has as main objective to contribute to the improvement of the competences of university graduates, in general, and of graduates in careers with high employability perspectives, in particular, such as those with a strong base in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). However, there are three intermediate objectives: first, the improvement of the skills of the university student population; second, the improvement of the orientation and skills of the secondary school student population with a university vocation; third, the improvement of academic management methods oriented towards excellence. Three objectives that cover a broad spectrum of academic supply and demand in secondary and university education centers. Therefore, the intended objectives contribute to the improvement of educational policies, incorporating ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) more efficiently.
Educational policies are seen as measures and tools designed to guarantee educational quality, but also, to guarantee equal access to the different levels of the system. Appropriate policies will facilitate the production of university graduates with more developed competencies and, consequently, of more qualified future professionals to achieve success in their professional activity. However, the effectiveness of the above it strongly depends on the skills bases acquired during secondary education. Therefore, the adaptation of the policies to the achievement of these goals implies a permanent process of improvement that should be based on a system of continuous evaluation of the educational process, hence the choice of indicators is key to obtain a more precise knowledge of the starting situation.
Our interest is focused on the detection of indicators based on student achievement, but also on others based on intangible aspects, although with relevance for student orientation. In other words, the academic production function can be optimized by incorporating new productive factors detected from intangible aspects. Our lastest projects are:
- Design a methodology to develop a ranking of academic excellence of the Secondary Education Institutes (IES) based on evaluated results, as a starting point for other similar products that will be based on inputs from the centers.
- Continuous survey procedure aimed at secondary school students to detect gaps in learning and determining factors in the choice of university studies.
- Status: A first version of its implementation has been completed. The survey will be conducted as soon as the CV-19 pandemic circumstances allow.
- Prediction tool for college dropout.
- Status: In progress. The methodology is expected to be completed and available for publication in a specialized magazine by the end of 2020. In the first quarter of 2021, it is planned to implement the methodology in a software application for use by the stakeholders of the education system.
The role that ICTs are assuming in education is increasingly important. However, we are used to this phenomenon in the field of administrative management of education institutions and centers, and in the field of methodology used by teachers, but not so much in the areas of strategic management and student orientation. Therefore, it is true that the progress of ICT in the educational field has been impressive, but there is still a lot of room for improvement in these two areas that have significant deficits, notwithstanding that aspects of 'eLearning' must also be reinforced, adopting technologies such as xAPI or CMI5 for training that facilitates access to educational resources on the Internet and the management of that experience. The new way of evaluating educational institutions and centers also entails a change in the learning methodology, something that, sooner rather than later, will be generalized in the Spanish education system.
Researchers involved in this line