Professional Competences in University students of Physical Education. Development, Evaluation and Transfer

Universities should offer students academic programmes focused on the demands of the workplace for the acquisition of professional competences. The aim of this study was to find out and compare the perception of the degree of development and importance given to professional competences in the field of Physical Education (PE) of 176 Spanish university students according to their degree and previous and current work experience. An ad hoc questionnaire was used, consisting of 15 questions on work experience, knowledge of competences, importance and degree of development. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis and for the comparison of variables, one-way ANOVA, post hoc Sheffe, and Student's t -test were used for analysis of variance or factor analysis. The main results indicated that the competences of problem solving, social skills and teamwork were the most important for the students, with teamwork being the most developed. The professional competences were perceived as satisfactory by the prospective teachers and PE teachers, with a significant imbalance between perceived importance and development in all the competences analysed, with the exception of teamwork in which they agreed as the most important and the most developed, with work in international contexts being the least valued. These results could provide information that would make it possible to bring the academic world and the professional world closer together in the field of the degrees analysed, in order to improve the employability of future graduates in the PE sector.