Modeling the structure of competencies based on data from the curricula of higher education programs

The article presents an approach to modeling the structure of competencies based on data from curricula of higher education programs. This approach makes it possible to decompose a competency as an integrative educational outcome formed within the curriculum by a set of disciplines and their interdisciplinary connections. The approach was tested on the example of analyzing the structure of a general professional competency within the curricula of the enlarged field of study 09.00.00.

The developed approach enables a sequential analysis of educational outcomes: from identified groups of competencies within an educational program to visualizing the trajectory of a specific competency and a diagram of its constituent disciplines with an assessment of their relative contribution.

The approach is based on representing the structure of the competency as a weighted directed graph, where vertices correspond to the disciplines that form the competency, and edges represent interdisciplinary connections and reflect the continuity of competency development throughout the entire period of study. This modeling method allows one to trace the step-by-step transformation of knowledge, skills, and abilities from the beginning to the end of the educational program. The constructed graph model provides a clear visualization of the contribution of individual disciplines to the formation of a specific competency, identifies the “core” disciplines of the competency, and assesses the uniformity of their distribution across the training periods. A detailed analysis of the structure of the competency GPC-1 demonstrates the ability to trace the logic of its formation from fundamental mathematical and information disciplines in the initial courses to professional disciplines in the senior years.

The research’s instrumental framework includes methods of formalization and algorithmization, as well as Business Intelligence platform tools (Yandex DataLens) for integrating curriculum data, and the network analysis software package Gephi for visualizing graph models.

The developed approach may be of interest in the design and updating of educational programs, as well as in the construction of individual educational trajectories for students.

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