Skills Evaluation Tool

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What it is: SET (Skills Evaluation Tool) is a potent platform which enables measurement, evaluation and development of entrepreneurial competences. It allows, in a flexible and professional way, the assessment of skills development in entrepreneurial programmes. Students are the real protagonists in evaluation. They reflect upon their own diagnosis and set improvement compromises which are monitored in cooperation with the teacher.

How it works: This platform offered by TKNIKA (Centre for Innovation in Vocational Training in the Basque Country) is interesting for any school as it allows for the adjustment of WHAT, WHO, WHEN AND HOW to evaluate entrepreneurial competences amongst students. It is based on a system of evaluative rubrics shown to users through a pleasant and easy to use interface allowing the visualisation of students’ progress in their competences through different graphs, as well as comparisons with the whole group.

Benefits: It allows the implementation at school-level of a flexible system. It establishes a co-evaluation system involving the student, project peers, and teachers in a quick and visual way. It enables each student to know which competences need improving and to acquire personal compromise, which is then monitored in his/her evolution, through different graphs and reports.

Challenges: It requires Internet connection to be used. In order to conduct measurements and evaluations there is also an App designed for Smartphones. The implementation and usage in the whole school entails preliminary (and hard) work of reflexion and configuration of the assessment model. One of the most important challenges is the choice of appropriate competences and levels of assessment.

Relevance for entrepreneurial teaching: SET offers a technical tool to all schools so that they can evaluate the level of development in entrepreneurial competences. It can be particularly useful in schools adopting active learning methodologies where students become the protagonists of their own learning.

Applied assessment methods: Owing to its power and personalisation capacity it offers a very interesting technical support to be implemented on a small or big scale. The configuration of participation weighting between self-assessment and co-assessment makes it an adaptable tool for the assessment of different competences and complexity levels. Its rubrics are oriented towards assessment of learning outcomes evidenced by student performance and linked to chosen competences and feedback provided by the teacher. SET is easy to use in the classroom thanks to the app designed for smartphones.

Examples from practice: SET has been implemented to facilitate the evaluation of entrepreneurial skills in Basque vocational education schools. It is used by 47 Vocational Education Schools, more than 3,500 students and 1,646 teachers in 142 different courses each year. It has also received good external evaluations and an agreement has recently been signed with the University of Chile in order that it be introduced into several of their programmes.

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