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Highlights • The need to look more deeply into the relationships between the competences. • Competences in communication are critical between university training and market demands. • Competences in communication are key in competence training. Abstract The educational model based on competences established under the unifying framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), has brought new challenges and threats for educational institutions at university level, who now have to adapt, update and face up to this new educational paradigm. This paper addresses the competences from two different perspectives; the first relating to the level reached by the student through university training received; and the second concerning the level required by labour market in the profession studied. The empirical analysis was performed using nonparametric statistics on a sample of 236 individuals, following the methodology of the Tuning project. The results support the existence of differences between the two blocks of analysed competences, as well as the importance of communication competences and the relationships of competences related to communication with all other competences with highest differences. This point to a course of action based on these competences, especially communication competences, as a way for working on improving the competence results in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper analyzes the impact of blended learning (BL) on the academic achievement of higher education students. A meta-analysis ( k = 51 effect sizes) was conducted to perform a statistical synthesis of studies contrasting student performance in BL conditions with traditional classroom instruction. We include disciplines and instructors’ end-of-course evaluation method as moderating variables. The results show that BL demonstrates a small summary effect ( g + = 0.385, p < 0.001) compared to traditional teaching methods A significantly higher mean effect size was found in STEM disciplines ( g + = 0.496) compared to that of non-STEM disciplines ( g + = 0.210). Nevertheless, the weighted mean effect sizes reveal no significant differences regarding of end-of-course assessment methods, namely one-moment and multiple-component assessment. The finding confirms that BL is significantly associated with greater learning performance of STEM-disciplined students than with traditional classroom practice. Accordingly, discussion concerning the findings and implications for future research are elaborated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]