WiWiKom I (2011-2015)

WiWiKom I (2011-2015): Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Business and Economics among Students and Graduates by Adapting and Further Developing Existing American and Mexican Measuring Instruments (TUCE/ EGEL).

Motivation and Goals

In German as well as in international research, there is a deficit regarding the modeling and measuring of professional competence in higher education. This also holds true for the most popular subjects of study in Germany: Business and Economics. On the basis of the internationally approved testing instruments TUCE and EGEL, the Projekt WiWiKom I (2011-2015) developed a measuring instrument for measuring professional business and economic competence, adapted for the German-speaking area. The project pursued two goals:

  1. Conceptualization, development and empirical testing of a competence model specifically for the the domains of business and economics.
  2. Faithful adaptation (in line with the “Test Adaptation Guidelines” (TAG); International Test Commission) of two internationally approved test instruments for the German-speaking higher education as well as a first validation of the measuring instrument:
  • Spanish-language tests “Examen General para el Egreso de la Licenciatura en administración” (EGEL-A) and “Examen General para el Egreso de la Linceciatura en Contaduría” (EGEL-C) dmy the Mexican Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior (CENEVAL).
  • English-language "Test of Understanding in College Economics” (TUCE IV) by the U.S. Council for Economic Education (CEE, Walstad, Watts & Rebeck 2007).

Project Schedule

  1. Development of a competence modelEntwicklung eines Kompetenzmodells.
  2. Translation
    (in cooperation with the professional chair of Prof Dr. Silvia Hansen-Schirra at the Faculty of Translation Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz).
  3. Curricular Analysens
    (of 98 business and economics degree courses), online expert evauation (N=78) und expert interviews (N=32) (in cooperation with DZHW, Dr. Hildegard Schaeper).
  4. Cognitive Interviews
    (N=30, 1 German higher education institution).
  5. Pretest summer term 2012
    (N=962, 2 German higher education institutions).
  6. First major field study winter term 2012/13
    (N=4050, 23 German higher education institutions).
  7. Cognitive Interviews
    (N=6, 1 German higher education institutions, for discriminant validation; N=20, random sample from first field study, for convergent validation).
  8. Second major field study summer term 2013
    (N=3713, 25 German higher education institutions).
  9. Third major field study summer term 2015
    (N=1492, 40 German higher education institutions).
  10. Overall evaluation and publication.

Results

see publications