Development of study and communication competences in the transition to higher education

Research has been stressing the importance and relevance of intra and interpersonal competence development in the promotion of the student academic success and general wellbeing. In the transition to Higher Education, the individual is confronted with different challenges and changes to which he must try to answer in a correct way so as to reach a positive and satisfactory adaptation. Separation from family and friends, the adaptation to new tasks, new personal, social and academic demands are considered inherent difficulties to this process of transition. As far as the academic dimension is concerned one of the most relevant difficulties is related to the adequacy of study strategies, used in secondary education, to the demands of the new context. The recent course changes concerning the Bologna Process demand the student the need to develop an active and more self-controlled learning process. The consciousness of the importance that the student should become a real manager of his study and communicational competences, led the Student Support Service of the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria (SSS/PIL) to implement two training programmes focused on the following transverse competences: Communication and Emotional Intelligence and Study Methods and Time Management, with the duration of 9 hours each. Those programmes, supervised on active methodologies, had, as their main objective, not only the development of adequate strategies in communication and interpersonal relationship, but also the achievement of strategies that contribute to improve the academic work and performance, stressing, thus, the importance of self-regulation to the success of the PIL student. In this context, with this paper proposal, we want to show the structure and implementation as well the main results of the two training programmes developed by SSS, in the 4 campus of PIL, in which 126 students were involved. In general, the programmes were assessed, very satisfactorily, by students who highlighted the importance of this type of training, especially in the context of the changes that took place, in Higher Education, due to the Bologna Process