Propuesta de aplicación de nuevos enfoques de análisis de competencias y perfiles profesionales digitales

Abstract

The main objective of this thesis is the proposal of a new approach to the analysis of competences and professional profiles in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The review research methods of existing contributions in the area reveals limitations and opportunities for improvement of the results of analysis. The main problems detected, leading to low accuracy and representativeness in the results of professional profiles analysis, are: a) lack of homogeneous and well-defined terminology and concepts linked to standard or to widely accepted competence models or frameworks, b) limitations in the variety of information sources and in the size and representativeness of the datasets for analysis, c) limitations in the design and efficiency of data collection, mainly based on manual methods and d) limited basic analysis of the data collected with questionnaires. Fortunately, especially in the European Union, the ESCO European Job Reference Framework and the EN16234 standard provide a homogeneous and well-defined terminology of competences, skills, knowledge, and attitudes for ICT professional profiles. The Skills Match model resulting from a European project provides a solid reference for soft skills. CEDEFOP's OVATE tool allows the analysis of millions of online job ads with ESCO terminology and the replication of the ESCO database allows sophisticated queries of its information for ICT profiles. The application of these options and other methodological improvements has allowed the confirmation of the improvement of the analyses presented in three impact publications, showing better representativeness and larger size of the data, a close linkage to existing reference models and a generation of more sophisticated results in the shape of competency frameworks. This confirmation enables a research line to extend the scope and robustness of studies of ICT occupational profiles in the future.