Development of Transferable Competencies in Academic Programs at King Saud University

ABSTRACT The study aims to identify the most important transferable competencies that academic programmes develop among students at King Saud University (KSU) and determine the most prominent methods of their development from their perspectives. It also intends to reveal differences that could be attributed to the variables of gender and academic discipline. A descriptive and analytical approach was used. 387 students from the scientific and humanitarian disciplines were chosen using the stratified random method. Results show that the most important transferable competencies that the academic programmes at KSU develop among their students are professionalism/ work ethics, teamwork/collaboration and digital technology. The most prominent methods of their development are project-based and problem-solving learning, immersion in the professional environment and active learning. No statistically significant differences are observed in the average responses of the participants attributed to the gender variable while there are significant differences ascribed to the academic discipline variable for scientific disciplines.