Self-assessment of freshmen students' base competencies

Not all incoming students are sufficiently well endowed with those base competencies (such as self organization, analytical thinking or communication skills) that are prerequisite for acquiring complex new knowledge as well as coping with the study process itself. As lecturers, we have to be aware of our incoming students' base competency profile, in order to pick them up where they are and help them develop whatever they need to study successfully. To investigate the students' initial skills regarding their base competencies, we developed a self-assessment focusing on selected self competencies, practical and cognitive skills as well as social competencies that are crucial to study computer science or related topics. In this paper, we present our assessment approach and its design. An initial evaluation in which 320 students were involved indicates that deficits in base competencies can be made tangible for students. Based on the deficits we identified, we are going to optimize our courses to meet freshmen students' needs in a better way.