COMPETENCE FOR RESEARCH: THE MASTER’S THESIS AND ITS SCIENTIFIC TRAINING POTENTIALITY

Abstract

The paper presented here is an expression of the Teaching Innovation project titled "Strategic learning in postgraduate education: development of metacognitive competence for scientific research and its training in Master's Thesis". This project has been carried out by a large number of teachers of a Psychoeducational Research Master. One of the most interesting contributions of Bologna Plan has been the incorporation of the competence concept into the dynamics of the teaching and learning activity of Higher Education. The competences that must be demanded in postgraduate studies differ in terms of quality and specificity from other Higher Education competences. Specifically, when we should teach to university students to be able to face scientific tasks, it is necessary to pay attention to the high-level cognitive skills that are present in these tasks, such as the choosing of problems to investigate, the synthesis of relevant knowledge to the investigation of a specific problem, the ability to formulate questions and research objectives, or the capacity to formulate assumptions and hypotheses that guide the scientific work. All this capabilities must be acquired by training, while practicing the research activity; in the case of master's studies, it materializes in the so-called Master's Thesis. The project presented here has had the purpose of testing the acquisition of this type of competences in the transition from the teaching activity of the subjects’ model, to the work model that is carried out through the advice and supervision of the TFM. The results of the project confirm that, effectively, the elaboration of a TFM stimulates autonomous thinking, and raises the intellectual competence in general and, in particular, the competencies that are necessary for the beginning of the research activity (doctoral thesis) proposes the Bergen Declaration.