Research on the 8 Key Competences

Latvia, Estonia, Spain, Croatia

2016

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Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………3

Quantitative research…………………………………………………..…..3

Demographic information and participation in the YIA,

Erasmus+…………………………………………………………………….3

Questions about competences………………………………………..5

About learning and games………..…………………………………13

Qualitative research…….………………………………………………….15

Experts……….………………………………………………………15

Competences……….………….……………………………………..15

About a “gap” ……………………………………….………………16

Additional information…………….…………….………………….16

Conclusions…………………………………………………………………17

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INTRODUCTION

Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Project “Enterprising and surprising through 8

key competences” (8KEYCOM) will be implemented in order to develop a new method

of non-formal education - Competence game, which will promote and develop 8 lifelong

learning competences.

First part of this project is to make research (qualitative and quantitative) in each

partner country about 8 competencies that will be used in the development of interactive

game. The aims of the research are: to find out how much youngsters and experts know

about 8 key competences, what is the level of understanding of what 8 key competences

are and where they are used and how youngsters recognise competences in themselves and

how they evaluate development level of competences in themselves and how they evaluate

competences from the perspective of the employer. And what would be the most effective

way how to include 8 competences in the game.

Research was made in two parts, first – qualitative research, 10 experts and/or

decision makers (in total 40) from different business fields and organizations (IT, NGO,

retail, manufacturing, cultural enterprise, service field, etc.) in each country were

interviewed about the most necessary competences, about 8 key competences and

competences that employers require from employees and about a gap that takes place

between youngsters and labor market.

And the second part – quantitative research, survey for youngsters age 13 – 25

about 8 key competences and how they have developed these competences in themselves

and how they think how employers would expect on what level these competences should

be developed in employees. Also youngsters were asked about their learning habits and

favorite games.

All results are described below, starting with quantitative research results,

qualitative research results and summary.

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Description

In total self-evaluation survey consist of 11 questions: demographic questions,

questions about 8 key competences, about learning habits and favourite games. Surveys

were distributed online. Surveys were collected in the period from December 2015 to the

end of February 2016.

Demographic information

1. Target group

In total 430 surveys were analysed, 130 are from Latvia, 100 – from Estonia, 100

– from Croatia, and 100 – from Spain. Most of the participants belong to the 18–25 age

group (see Table 1).

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The target group of this research is young people aged 13–25, as the tool, which

will be created in this project, is intended for youth at this age. There have been more than

100 answers to this survey in each country, though we have analysed only the answers

from the young people aged 13–25.

Table 1

2. Gender

Out of all the participants from all four countries 32% are men and 68% – women (see

Table 2).

Table 2

3. What is the highest degree or level of school you have completed?

In Croatia, out of 100 people who participated in this survey, 1 person (1%) has

finished elementary school (grade 5–8), 23 people (23%) have finished gymnasium /

high school, 16 people (16%) have finished other types of high school – vocational

secondary education, 41 people (41%) have bachelor’s degree, and 19 people (19 %)

have master’s degree.

In Latvia, 51% of the respondents are high school graduates, 28% of the respondents

have finished elementary school, 10% of respondents have acquired vocational

secondary education (finished vocational high school in Latvia). 8% of the respondents

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have bachelor’s degree, and 1% of the respondents has master’s degree. All

respondents show at least some education level, none of the participants has been left

without any education.

In Estonia, 59% of the people aged 13–25 who participated in this survey are high

school graduates, 27% have completed elementary school, 6% have obtained

bachelor’s degree and 6% have finished primary school. One person has indicated that

he/she has other education explaining that he/she has graduated from vocational school

completing high school education with a professional qualification, and one person has

master’s degree. There are no people who have had no schooling.

In Spain, out of the 100 participants who took part in the survey, 37% have acquired

high school education and might be involved in the university or vocational education

process (still not finished). Another 31% of the participants have bachelor’s degree (a

three-year or a four-year programme of studies at the university in Spain), and 26% are

still in the high school or vocational school but have finished the elementary school.

One of the participants has indicated he/she has no schooling, and 5 are still in the

elementary school.

It can be concluded that the largest share of the respondents participating in this

survey are high school graduates.

1. Employment Status: Are you currently…?

To estimate the employment status of the participants in each country, we have

analysed the groups of 10% or more of all participants from each country.

In Croatia, the largest group of 26% is out of work, but not currently looking for work,

18% are out of work and looking for work, 16% are students, and 13% work during the

summer holidays.

In Latvia, the largest group is 31% who work during the summer holidays, 19% of the

respondents are out of work but not currently looking for work, three similar groups

consist of the fully employed (15%), part-time employed (15%) and the respondents

who are out of work and looking for work (14%).

In Estonia, the largest group, which accounts for 37% of the survey respondents,

works part-time, 30% have selected “Other” specifying that they are full-time pupils or

students, and 20% work during the (summer) holidays.

In Spain, 27% are out of work, but not currently looking for work, 19% are part-time

employed, 14% are full-time employed and 14% are out of work and looking for work,

11% work during the summer holidays, and 11% have selected “Other”.

It results from the answers above that . Since our target group is students and pupils,

this shows that they are not fully employed but are going to be full-time employees in

the future.

2. Have you been involved in any Youth in Action or/and Erasmus + project?

In Croatia, 19 of the respondents (19%) have been involved in a YIA and/or Erasmus+

project, while 70 (70%) have not, and 11 (11%) do not even know what it is. In Latvia,

64% have been involved, 38% have not, 7% do not know what it is, and 2% have been

involved in other projects or are not sure. In Estonia, 60% have not been involved, 30%

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have been involved, and 10% do not know what it is. In Spain, 57% have participated

in these projects, 40% have not, and 3% do not know what it is.

To sum it up, in four countries 48% of the respondents have not been involved in any

YIA and/or Erasmus+ projects, 44% have been involved, and 7% do not know what

these projects are (see Table 3).

Table 3

Questions about competences

3. Do you know what the eight key competences for lifelong learning are?

In Croatia, out of 100 answers provided to this survey question, 27 answers (27%)

show that people have heard about them, but do not know more about them, 60 people

(60%) do not know what these competences are, and 13 people (13%) have answered

“Yes”.

In Latvia, 35% of all the respondents know what the eight key competences for

lifelong learning are, 59% answered that they do not about them, and 36% have heard

about them, but do not know what they exactly are.

In Estonia, only 7% of the people who participated in this survey and belong to the

13–25 age group know what the eight key competences for lifelong learning are. 57%

do not know about lifelong learning competences, 34% have heard about them, but do

not know what they exactly are. 2% have selected “Other” without specifying what

they mean.

In Spain, although more than half of the people state that they have participated in

Erasmus+ or Youth in Action projects, 32% admit that they do not know what the key

competences are, 33% state that they know, and 35% have heard about them but do not

know much.

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In general, it can be concluded that 20% of the respondents from all the countries state

that they know what the eight key competences are, almost 80% do not know what they

are or have heard about them but do not know much (see Table 4).

Table 4

4. To what extent have you personally developed these competences? and

Imagine that you are an employer, how developed should these competences

be for your employee?

We have asked all the respondents to evaluate how developed their own eight key

competences are, and if they were employers, how developed these competences should

be for their employees. Thus we are comparing answers of self-evaluation and youth

understanding of employer expectations.

1) Communication in the mother tongue. As we can see from Table 5 (see Table 5),

the self-evaluation is overall not different from the employer expectations. The largest

difference is that the young people as employers (68%) would more often expect a high

level of the communication in the mother tongue, i.e. “Very much”, while their own

competence in this area is evaluated as “Very much” less frequently (62.3 %). In

general, answers given to both questions are very similar for this competence.

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Table 5

2) Communication in foreign languages. Table 6 shows large differences at the

levels of “Sometimes” and “Very much”. Young people evaluate their level of the

communication in foreign languages as “Sometimes” (30.5) but are of the opinion

that employees would expect this level more often (50.5). The same applies to

“Very much” – a small share of the young people evaluated their competence of

communication in foreign languages to be at this level (15.5), while employers

would except this competence to be developed at “Very much” (33). This clearly

shows that young people think that employers expect a high or a very high level of

communication in foreign language, while the self-evaluation of the level of this

competence is lower.

Table 6

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3) Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology. It

is clear from the Table 6 that self-evaluation of mathematical and basic

competences in science and technology is higher at “Not at all” (3.8) and “Not

very” (18.5) than what the employer would expect, but at “Normal”, “Sometimes”

and “Very much” self-evaluations is lower than what the employer would expect.

This shows that the young people evaluate this competence to be developed at a

lower level than the employer would expect it to be.

Table 7

4) Digital competence. As we can see from Table 8, the digital competence is evaluated

similarly, with a tendency for young people to evaluate a lower level of this

competence than the level the employer would expect them to have which is reflected

at “Sometimes” and “Very much”, but a higher level at “Not at all”, “Not very” and

“Neutral”. This tendency is rather insignificant, but still it shows that the young people

believe employers have higher expectations than the level of this competence the

young people actually have.

Table 8

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5) Learning to learn. The Table 9 shows that at “Neutral” the learning to learn is

evaluated at a higher level than the level the employer would actually expect. At

“Sometimes” it shows a tendency for young people to believe that the employers

would expect more than there actually is, and at “Very much” this tendency is

growing, showing that the youth evaluate their competence as “Very high” (22.3)

and as employers they would expect it to be developed “Very much” (37 answers).

Table 9

6) Social and civic competences. The Table 10 shows that the self-evaluation of the

social and civic competences is higher at “Not very”, while employers would

expect this competence to be even less developed. Answers of “Neutral” and

“Sometimes” with regard to the self-evaluation are also more common than the

ones regarding employer expectations. This might show a tendency for young

people to feel more certain of this competence at these levels. At “Very much” the

results reflect a different trend, i.e. young people evaluate the development of this

competence at a much lower level (35.00) than the employer expectations (52.3).

As we can see, the results fundamentally differ at “Sometimes” and “Very much”

which can also be explained by not clearly understanding this competence, as only

approximately 20% of the participants know what these competences are.

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Table 10

7) Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. As we can see from Table 11, the level

of the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship is higher than the employer

expectations at “Not very” and “Neutral”, but lower at “Sometimes” and much

lower at “Very much” which suggests that young people think that employers

would expect this competence to be developed “Very much” and certainly more

developed than the competence they actually have.

Table 11

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8) Cultural awareness and expression. As we can see from Table 12, this

competence is evaluated similarly at all levels, and the largest difference is at “Very

much” where youth evaluated their competence as exceeding the employer

expectations.

Table 12

9. The Table 13 shows the general tendency, which is revealed as a result of the

young people evaluating their personal development of the eight key

competences and how developed they would expect these competences to be if

they were employers.

This tendency, except for a few particular competences and levels which we have

discussed above, allows us to conclude that when evaluating themselves the young

people tend to select “Not very” and “Neutral” more often than when acting as an

employer, but as to “Sometimes” and “Very much” the tendency is opposite and the

employer expectations most often exceed the levels of self-evaluation.

These results also show that “Sometimes” is the most common answer, except for social

and civic competences, where the employer expectations are such that this competence

should be developed “Very much”, and also in the communication in the mother tongue,

where the employers expect this competence to be developed “Very much”. This allows

us to conclude that the young people participating in this research believe that these

competences are the ones expected to be highly developed from the perspective of the

employers.

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Table 13

The communication in the mother tongue and the social and civic competences have

received the highest level of self-evaluation (“Very much”). Thus it can be concluded that

the young people believe their personal development of these competences is very high.

The highest employer expectations may be observed for the communication in the mother

tongue, while the second highest evaluation has been given to the social and civic

competences. This shows that the youth believe these are the most important

competences sought by the employer.

As to the answer “Sometimes”, the employer expectations are higher than the self-

evaluation of the young people almost for all competences. The only exception are the

communication in the mother tongue and the cultural awareness and expression, where

results are similar, and the social and civic competences where self-evaluation exceeds the

employer expectations. Thus we can conclude that the young people feel more confident in

these competences than any others. If the employer expected the employees to have these

competences “Sometimes”, they would meet the requirements or even exceeded them in

the case of the social and civic competences.

Taking into consideration that the most common answer given in both self-evaluation and

employer expectations is “Sometimes”, it is possible to identify the biggest gap between

the employer expectations and the actual self-evaluation. Comparing all competences the

largest gap can be observed in the communication in foreign language, where the level of

expectations considerably exceeds the real situation. This allows us to conclude that the

young people believe this is the most important competence from the employer’s point of

view but not sufficiently developed personally.

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The most similar evaluations where self-evaluation meets the most of the employer

expectations can be observed in the communication in the mother language, and the

cultural awareness and expression.

We would like to emphasise a couple of aspects which have likely influenced the results.

First, only 20% of all the participants actually knew (or at least they thought they knew)

what the eight key competences were and what they meant. The rest of them were given

short descriptions which they read before evaluating the competences, so their evaluation

of the competences might have been affected by stereotypical thinking. Second, questions

were similar in both evaluation groups which could have also affected the results and

encouraged to provide similar answers to the same questions. Third, as most of the

participants were looking for a full-time job, some aspects, such as being nervous or afraid

to fail in attempt to find a good full-time job, as well as the recent crisis and unemployment

could have made the respondents to feel pressured and afraid of requirements they might

face in the process of finding a job.

We can conclude that, on average, the evaluation of their personal development of the

competences is lower than the employer expectations. This is normal for pupils and

students to have this opinion, because they are still in education process and being

prepared for labour market. It is, however, very important to help them to recognise their

competences on each stage of the education, because the labour market requires different

positions, starting from ones where no specific education is required and a young person

can start with this position and develop his/her competences in a practical way. The survey

results reveal the inner fear of the young people and the way they see employers, as,

overall, the results show that the employers expect more than there actually is in almost all

competences which can lead to subjective fear of being inadequate for some position.

Therefore it would be advisable to help the young people to recognise their

competences and to be able to compare them to the positions and professions they

want to enter in order to be more adequate, prepared and successful in finding the

right job.

About learning and games

10. What is especially important for you in the learning process? Learning process

should be…

Comparing the results from all the countries, it can be said that the most common first

choice to the question “What is especially important for you in the learning process?

Learning process should be...” is as follows:

1. learning process should be educational;

2. learning process should be innovative;

3. learning process should be interesting.

11. How would you prefer to learn new knowledge the most?

In Latvia, 82% of the respondents have answered that they would prefer to learn new

knowledge by trying themselves how to do it. The second most common answer is to have

discussions with others (52%).

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In Estonia, 59% of the received responses show that the young people aged 13-25 prefer

to learn new things the most by trying themselves how to do it, while 18% would rather

learn by watching how other people do it.

In Croatia, the respondents mostly prefer to acquire new knowledge as follows: by

watching how other people do it (48%), individually (44%), by trying themselves how to

do it and together with their friends (43%).

In Spain, the young people prefer trying themselves how to do it (46%) and playing game

(34%).

Thus it can be concluded that the most common answer provided by the young people in

this survey is that they would like to learn new knowledge by trying themselves.

12. Please list the 3 table games that you like the most.

The answers provided to this question allow to conclude which games are popular in which

country and what games are popular in all the countries. There are some games, such as

Monopoly, Alias, Cash Flow, cards games, chess and domino, Uno, Scrabble, Catan,

which are very popular in all the countries.

We can conclude that the young people prefer to learn taking a practical approach, i.e. by

doing themselves, and they prefer the learning process which is educational, innovative

and interesting. Games can be the way how to make the learning process educational,

innovative and interesting. Moreover, a game requires each participant to engage in the

process, so the tool-game, which is going to be created in this project, will match the

preferences of the young people.

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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Description

In total semi – structured interview consists of 7 questions: informative questions about

position held in company and company itself, about competences and a gap between

employers and employees.

Experts

Overall, 40 people were interviewed from January 2016 to the end of February 2016.

These were 10 experts from each country – Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Spain.

Areas that were covered: NGO, IT, media, civil sector, employment service,

educational institutions, cultural enterprise, driving school, kindergarten,

construction company, oil company, furniture company, retail company, plastic

injection factory, SPA centre and health centre, travelling agency and one

freelancer.

The size of the organisations and companies varies from a few people (1-2 people)

to 350 people.

Positions held by the interviewed people: career consultants, directors, assistant

directors, department managers, entrepreneurs, HR specialists, recruiters, coaching

trainer. Most of the positions are related to a decision-making process either in

recruiting, educating or consulting about employability questions from different

point of views.

Competences 1. The first question is “Could you tell what the most important competences (at

least 5) in the labour market are from your point of view?” The aim of this question is to find out the average and general opinion of all experts

as to what the main competences are. We can identify some competences which

have been mentioned first as the most important, though the word “competences”

was used by the interviewers, not the experts:

The most frequently mentioned skills and knowledge can be related to the

communication competence and then the communication in the mother

tongue and foreign languages. Apart from soft skills, some specific

professional knowledge (hard skills) has been mentioned as well as one of

the most significant competences for a specific position.

Second group consist of skills that experts mentioned that can be related to

social and civic competences which are connected to the communication

competences, and also the skills that are associated with motivation,

willingness to work and learning to learn which could be related to the

learning to learn competence; and

Partly to the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship which is the next

group where skills such as initiative, management, innovation, planning etc.

are highlighted.

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Other skills have been mentioned as well, but this research focuses on the most

common answers. It should be noted that most of the participants have not used

the categories and terms of 8 key competences described above, experts are

using most common explanations through such concepts as skills and

knowledge, as most of them are not at all aware of the eight key competences.

2. The next question is “Do you know (or have you heard) what the eight key

competences for lifelong learning are and what each competence stands for?” While people working in the youth sector and NGOs know what the eight key

competences are, experts from business sector have either heard about them but do

not know anything more or do not know anything about them. Overall, about 20%

of the experts actually know what the eight key competences are.

3. The question “Which competences are the most important from the employer’s

point of view?” was asked after presenting all the eight key competences to the

experts. Answers show that the social and civic competences, and the

communication in the mother tongue are considered to be the most important

competences (in some cases the communication in foreign language was added to

the communication in the mother tongue). The next group is the sense of initiative

and entrepreneurship which is followed by the learning to learn competence. The digital competence and the mathematical competence have also been

mentioned once or twice, but it does not seem to be a general trend. The cultural

awareness and expression either has been mentioned as the last one or has not been

mentioned at all.

About a gap between the competences that an employer expects

from an employee and the competences that an employee

actually has

4. Next question is “Could you tell us your observations or comments – is there a

gap between the competences that an employer expects from an employee and

the competences that an employee actually has?”.

The aim of this question is to find out whether there is a gap between the

competences of the youth and the employer expectations and if yes, what kind of

gap. In general, the answer is “Yes”, there is a gap. Overall, 40 experts agree that

there is a gap between the employees and the employers, and the main focus is on

the gap concerning skills, competences and knowledge that the young people have

when leaving formal education institutions. Employers evaluate this knowledge as

being mainly theoretical and not sufficiently practical which is the result of the

education system in general. It takes time for young professionals to adapt to the

“real” work with skills and competences they need for some particular position.

Both employers and employees should understand it, yet it is not always the case.

The employers want to have perfect professionals outright, while potential

employees might think they are already prepared enough. This makes the gap

between the employers and the employees.

5. As to the question “What would be your suggestions for bridging the gap?,

experts agree that the main aspect to be considered is the education system. Most of

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the suggestions focus on the idea of connecting theoretical approach with

practical approach, and connecting formal education with non-formal education,

for example, through field work, as well as practical working in real companies

(internship, or companies being paid for having an intern), having educational

seminars about companies, professions and labour market in general, making

educational tours in organisations. This knowledge of profession and real “work

life” will lead to understanding of the appropriate competences which should be

developed for a future profession.

Additional information A few experts have emphasised the importance of knowing how to write a proper CV in a

professional manner and adapting it to the particular position, as employers experience

situations when applicants submit improper documents when applying for a new job. Some

experts have also indicated that employees are not able to identify their skills and

competences, do not recognise them and fail to successfully present them to the employer.

Conclusions The aim of conducting research in four countries – Latvia, Estonia, Spain and Croatia –

was to obtain information about the competences and learning from very different people

in different organisations occupying various positions and different young people.

After carrying out all the interviews and comparing all the answers, it can be concluded

that the communication in the mother tongue (and foreign language) and the social and

civic competences are the most required competences in different organisations. The next

two are the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and the learning to learn. This tendency

is rather strong. The survey results also reveal that the young people are aware of the fact

that the communication in the mother tongue and the social and civic competences are the

competences which the employer expects to be developed at a very high level. So both

sides are prioritising the same competences. From this we can conclude that the reason for

the gap is likely not the misunderstanding as to which competences are necessary, but

rather the inability to present them to an employer.

Taking into consideration that the aim of the research is also to find out more about the

possible difficulties which the young people experience when looking for a job, the

question about the gap showed that there is a gap in four EU countries between the

competences which the employer expects from the employee and the competences that

the employee actually has or presents. The main reason for this gap is the fact that the

knowledge the people acquire at formal education institutions is theoretical, while

employers expect more practical knowledge. This means that more practical, non-formal

and educational methods are required in formal education. All kinds of tools, methods and

materials that can educate and inform young people about different professions and their

connection with the particular competences (skills, knowledge and attitude) should be

supported, as well as the tools for developing different competences in a practical way.

Both the qualitative research and the quantitative research reveal that approximately 20%

of the people know what the eight key competences are. This proves that the eight key

competences are not well known and should be discovered more for young people and for

employers. This may also help to arrive at a common understanding of what exactly both

sides expect and which competences should be developed more.

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In order to make a tool during this project, we have also asked the young people to name

the games which they play, and explain how they would like to learn and what the most

important for learning process is. It can be concluded that the learning process should be

educational, innovative and interesting, where young people can learn by trying to do

things themselves which is the practical learning by doing that complies with the non-

formal education approach. These aspects will be used to develop a new tool in this

project, i.e. a game for young people.

Reviewing the main aims of the research, it can be concluded that the level of

understanding and using knowledge of 8 key competences is rather low both in expert

group and between youngsters. This research shows general tendency that has to be

discovered more in future researches.

The main aim of this project is to create a game for young people aged 13–25. This

research clearly shows that such a tool is necessary for helping to educate young people

about the eight key competences, understand them, as well as to define, recognise and

analyse their competences in order to be more prepared to present their competences to the

employer. We will also employ a number of methods and ways to engage youth in the

development of the competences in an educational and interesting way, allowing them to

learn by doing.

As to the future research on competences, it would be necessary to determine

whether the young people and experts understand competences the same way in order to

better discover what they expect from each other.