Training transversal competences in a bachelor’s degree in translation and interpreting: preliminary evidence from a clinical trial

ABSTRACT

Transversal competences are now essential not only for employability but for the well-being of students, and thus for society as a whole. However, these competences are not commonly taught or researched as part of higher education degree programmes. This evidently leads to a gap between ideal teaching goals and what students actually learn in their undergraduate studies. To meet this need, a psychoeducational intervention was designed and implemented in an undergraduate programme in translation and interpreting within the framework of a teaching innovation project. The impact of this intervention was tested on transversal competences such as emotional intelligence and regulation, creativity, psychological distress, and cultural intelligence, among others. This parallel exploratory study compared the effectiveness of two mindfulness-based programmes. In both mindfulness-based training programmes, the preliminary results seemed to indicate an improvement in these transversal competences. Limitations of the study were the design, sample size, and the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of our study led to recommendations for degree programme design as well as a platform for discussion and debate on the relationship between higher education, competence-based training, and social demands. The clinical trial was registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04392869).

KEYWORDS:

• Transversal competences
• clinical trial
• curriculum design
• employability
• translator and interpreter training

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Elvira Cámara and Inmaculada Soriano, from the Department of Translation and Interpreting, for the assistance in the administration of the creativity questionnaire and help in the 4 ECTS credit validation process, respectively. They would also like to thank Concepción Castellanos, from the Mind, Brain and Behaviour Research Centre (CIMCYC), for her contribution in the randomization schedule and Pamela Faber, from the Department of Translation and Interpreting, for proofreading the final version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authorship contribution statement

Conceptualization: MGQ; Software: LC; Methodology; Investigation, Data curation and formal analysis: LC, MF, MO, MGQ; Writing – original draft: MGQ; Writing – review and editing: LC, MF, MO, MGQ; Supervision: MF; Project administration and funding acquisition: MGQ. LC and MF contributed equally to this work.

Data availability statement

Due to privacy and ethical restrictions, the data that support the findings of this study will be made available upon reasonable request.

Notes

1. While initially we also aimed to assess the impact of this intervention on the academic performance of the students, the evaluation process had to be extensively remodelled because of the pandemic. As a result, this secondary objective could not be achieved.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received financial support for the research from the Plan for Teacher Training and Innovative Teaching Practice (FIDO), 2018-2020, Quality, Teaching Innovation and Planning Unit (UCIDP), and from the former Chair in Conscience and Development., both from the University of Granada (Spain). LC was supported by a doctoral fellowship from ‘la Caixa’ Foundation (ID 100010434; fellowship code LCF/BQ/DE18/11670002).