In reference works on the topical reform of German university study courses, there is talk about teaching or gaining competencies in all disciplines. As long as there are no suitable techniques and instruments to measure competencies, the risk of mere competence rhetoric remains.
Especially in the field of economic sciences – the most widely chosen study course in Germany – hitherto there are almost no studies and German instruments that facilitate the modeling and assessment of (subject) competence in higher education.
The research project WiwiKom iteratively pursues two goals in order to enable an empirically-based level- and structure modeling of economic (subject) competence.
1) An economic, domain-specific competence model will be conceptualized and developed and empirically tested and validated in German higher education in a second step.
2) Two internationally tested and approved test instruments, the Mexican „Examen General para el Egreso de la Licenciatura“ (EGEL) of the Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior (CENEVAL) and the American "Test of Understanding in College Economics“ (TUCE) of the Council for Economic Educations (CEE), have to be genuinely adapted, further developed and validated into a German measuring instrument, so that the developed competence model can be measured.
Furthermore the adaption of the Spanish/Latin-American and American test for the German language facilitates comparisons between the different countries.