Postgraduate education in the development of professional competences: an analysis in master's students in the areas of human sciences and applied social sciences

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand the impact of postgraduate (Master) in the development and acquisition of professional skills. This is a qualitative and descriptive study with master's students in the areas of Humanities and Social Sciences. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, based on the theoretical model of professional skills of Fleury and Fleury (2007): know how to act, know mobilize resources, know to communicate, know to learn, know to engage and to commit, knowing take responsibility and have strategic vision. The results highlight that the masters of applied social sciences, in general, all the skills were developed during the master. While the masters of the Human Sciences have been developed by all, only two skills, know to communicate and know to learn. In this sense, these two skills were developed by all surveyed, highlighting the importance of communication and the ability to review mental models, contributing to one of the master's purposes, which is acting as a teacher. Note also that emerged the importance of knowing how to relate as a competence for the professional teacher and the general masters consider the master as a way to improve the knowledge through the theoretical framework, but at the same time, realize a disabled relation to practical activity.