Development of Core Competencies for University Students during the Pandemic, Crisis of Public Health

,


Introduction
The OECD defined core competencies as 'the competencies that are essential for everyone to lead a successful life', and it emphasized the enhancement of core competencies through education (OECD 2005). Countries around the world are applying competency-based curriculum to higher education as well as elementary and secondary education, and it is necessary to diagnose and evaluate students' core competencies to confirm the effectiveness of this curriculum. In particular, it is important to develop and apply a core competency diagnosis scale suitable for each university, as each higher education institution has different founding ideology, talent image, vision, etc. In addition, it is required to clearly identify the level of each student's competency by using the core competency diagnosis scale, and to provide a desirable curriculum and support for school life for student growth.
A representative study on core competencies is the Definition and Selection of key Competencies (DeSeCo) project announced by the OECD in 2005. This project started with the question 'What competencies are needed to realize a successful life and a well-functioning society?' (Lee 2019). This project reflected the concept of competency, which has been mainly discussed in private companies or occupational fields, to the education field, and provided an opportunity to recognize the core competencies that future talents should possess. In addition, the focus was on students possess core competencies so that they can grow into the future through the curriculum, and these core competencies must be formed in connection with the academic subjects and non-curricular courses in school (Kim, 2019). Excellent talents required by the future society should not simply have knowledge, but should be able to create new values by combining them with various fields based on their knowledge and expanding their thinking, or to solve problems facing mankind. This means that there is a need for more creative talents who can respond flexibly and effectively to social changes, such as the more complex link between the individual and society and the integration of work and learning (Kim, 2019). In a rapidly changing world situation such as the recent one, the ability to understand and solve problems in a new way is required. In addition, the major classes in the past were not limited to the relevant field, but students themselves should be able to expand their thinking and converge with adjacent disciplines. Accordingly, the university is trying to achieve the academic performance of university students by deriving core competencies for nurturing current students and providing major curriculum based on this.
To look at the components of core competencies, it is necessary to look at the DeSeCo project. The DeSeCo defines core competencies as interactive use of tools, interaction within heterogeneous groups, and autonomous behavior and leads the OECD-led International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) assessment and analysis program (OECD, 2005). The PIAAC's key survey is a survey of adult skills that measures proficiency in key information processing skills (literacy, numeracy, problem solving) and provides information and data about how adults use technology at home, work and in the community (OECD, 2010;OECD, 2012;OECD, 2013;OECD, 2018). In this study, core competencies are the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and ability to derive outstanding results in the process of performing a job (Spenser et al., 1993). It is the ability to live a down-to-earth life. In other words, core competency is a concept that encompasses the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required to solve problems in a diverse and changing environment. Now, the university has become a place to establish the universal values required by the times, lead the times, and create knowledge and wisdom for the mature development of the national society. As in the past, it has become difficult to respond to changes in knowledge and skills and changes in the labor market only with education on major knowledge or skills. Universities around the world provide excellent subjects and non-course subjects, allowing students to develop specialization in their majors, solve social problems, lead others through convergence thinking and manage conflicts (Ministry of Education in South Korea, 2015). In particular, excellent universities develop and provide a curriculum that helps to balance core cognitive and non-cognitive abilities, and teach students to demonstrate their creative abilities (Jin et al., 2011).
In the past, the academic achievement of college students could only be checked with one credit. However, in a changed society, the achievements of university education include not only major knowledge and expertise, but also critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, communication skills, leadership, and global mind. However, there are universities or college students with low awareness of core competencies, and even if there are developed core competencies, it is necessary to apply social changes that require new future competencies (Kim, 2019). In this study, it was determined that it was necessary to improve core competencies through new future competencies required by a developed society, and accordingly, core competencies, sub competencies, and diagnostic tools were improved.

Core Competencies of University Students
Core and Sub Competencies. Competencies, which emerged in the context of intensifying productivity and competition, does not mean the ability in a specific area, but rather includes life skills to make an individual's life worthwhile and human, including even the non-cognitive area, which is an individual's characteristics and abilities. is being expanded to Emphasizing competency is a way to spread awareness of individuality according to respect for individual values and to reveal the emphasis in the non-cognitive domain, which has turned from the emphasis on the cognitive domain. Competency can be understood as an 'internal characteristic of an individual' to appropriately respond to a certain job or situation (Spenser et al., 1993). Since the 1990s, when the DeSeCo project, which provided a new meaning to competency, was implemented, it became more active by forming a discourse on core competency and educational performance indicators.
Core competencies can be developed by themselves, but core competencies can be subdivided and materialized through sub-competencies. Sub-competency is a more subdivided and concrete concept for each core competency. The concept of competency itself is abstractly broad, so it is important to avoid overlapping or conflicting hierarchies or categories between core competencies, between core competencies and sub-competencies, and between sub-competencies. The setting of sub-competency is useful when applied to the curriculum in that it subdivides and materializes the vague and abstract concepts and areas of core competencies (Jin et al., 2011).

Core Competencies of K-University
K-University is the first national history school established by the patriots of the Provisional Government of Shanghai in 1946. The government desired for pure academic enthusiasm and a balanced intellect at the said university. Any great ideal involves the belief that meaningful results can only be achieved through consistent practice under a concrete plan. Seong-gon Kim, who took over K University in 1959, inherited the above founding ideology and at the same time laid the foundation for the university's revival by adding the four major educational ideologies of 'nationalism, humanism, culturalism, and industrialism'. 'Nationalism' emphasizes that science should contribute to the welfare and prosperity of the nation, while 'humanism' expresses the spirit of universal respect for humanity that transcends national and ethnic boundaries. In addition, 'culturalism' emphasizes that the purity of academics should be highly valued in universities, and 'industrialism' means that science should be practically used in real life and national industrial development (Kookmin University, 2013).
Based on this founding philosophy and education philosophy, K University has established a university philosophy to nurture competent talents with a strong national view and national consciousness. The university philosophy is embodied as an educational purpose that reflects the needs of the nation, society and the times, and in Chapter 1 Article 1 of the school regulations, "Based on the spirit of Hong-ik Humanity (widely benefit humans), the educational philosophy of Korea, and the founding philosophy and education philosophy of the university. By faithfully performing education, research, and social service activities necessary for the development of the nation and human society, it aims to nurture talents equipped with the knowledge of practicing cultured people, communicators, leading future people, and creative professionals." stated (Kookmin University, 2014).
Character education, cooperative education, initiative education, and creativity education are the educational goals set by K University to nurture students into practicing liberals, communicative collaborators, leading future people, and creative professionals. These educational goals are achieved when students have the core competencies each educational goal requires. From November 2013 to February 2014, the university went through a multifaceted research and analysis process, such as analyzing the university ideology, surveying the talents required by companies, surveying the talents of domestic and foreign universities, and surveying the opinions of university members including alumni. The five core competencies established were, first, 'humanities competency,' which is the core competency required for the realization of character education; 'communication competency,' which is the cooperative education; 'globalization competency,' which is the initiative education, and; 'creativity competency' and 'professionalism competency' which are the core competencies required for creativity education. Through the achievement of the above-mentioned university philosophy, four educational objectives, four educational goals, and five core competencies, should be aimed by K-University to cultivate talents that meet the needs of the nation, society and the times, that is, "challenging talents" (Kookmin University, 2015).
The definitions of the five core competencies and sub-competencies established by K-University to nurture talented people who take on challenges are as follows. First, 'humanities competency' refers to efforts to establish a correct view of history and practice service based on morality and cultural literacy. These competencies are further subdivided into four sub-competencies: historical knowledge, ethical awareness, cultural sensibility, and service spirit (Kookmin University, 2014). Among them, historical knowledge refers to the ability to understand and explore people and life through correct historical consciousness. On the other hand, ethical consciousness refers to an attitude to seriously reflect on the right and wrong about human behaviour and way of life, an attitude to consider the interests of others or the community before one's own interests, and a tendency to act according to belief in morality. Cultural sensibility means the effort and attitude to be interested in and enjoy culture and art, and the sensitivity to beauty. Lastly, the spirit of service refers to the attitude of voluntarily sacrificing oneself to help others or for the sake of the community, even though there is no material gain.
The second core competency, 'communication competency', refers to the ability to produce results through cooperation in the community by using appropriate media to convey one's thoughts and empathize with others. These communication skills are subdivided into three sub-competencies: communication ability, cooperative spirit, and responsibility. Communication competency' refers to the ability to effectively express one's intentions and thoughts, and to understand and listen to various information. It is the ability to coordinate opinions and effectively collaborate for a common goal in a community (Kookmin University, 2015). Also, 'responsibility' refers to an attitude of willingly accepting what one must endure for a common goal in the community.
The third core competency, 'globalization competency', refers to the ability to cultivate foreign language skills and accept cultural diversity based on self-identity and initiative in a global environment (Kookmin University, 2014). The first sub-competency that constitutes this is 'self-direction', which sets goals for one's life, establishes and implements specific plans to achieve them, evaluates the results and reflects them in the next plan. On the other hand, the second sub-competency, 'challenge spirit,' strives to find new possibilities rather than passively living one's life according to a given pattern, acts one step ahead of others, and is afraid of failures that may occur in this process. The third sub-competence, 'global mind', refers to the ability to understand oneself as a part of the global environment, apply one's thoughts to this environment, and act according to the situation and context. 'Ability' refers to the ability to express one's opinion through communication with a foreigner, understand the other's opinion, as well as adjust the opinion according to the situation.
The fourth core competency, 'creativity competency', refers to the ability to critically analyse phenomena and solve problems found from various perspectives. This competency consists of three sub-competencies: creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving. First, creativity refers to the ability to find new and appropriate solutions out of a fixed way of thinking, and critical thinking ability refers to the thinking and attitude that can derive valid and reliable evaluations based on objective analysis of data (Kookmin University, 2014). Problem-solving refers to the ability to find new problems in unstructured problem situations, suggest various alternatives, and derive optimal solutions. The last core competency, 'professionalism competency', refers to the ability to think convergence that can be applied to various fields by acquiring in-depth major knowledge. These specialized competencies are composed of two sub-competencies, namely, major knowledge and convergence thinking ability. First, 'major knowledge' refers to the ability to acquire core major knowledge or skills required in the relevant field through major education, and to systematically manage it to utilize it appropriately as needed (Kookmin University, 2014). 'Convergence thinking competency' refers to the confidence and positive attitude toward convergence necessary to grow into a talented person who can solve problems creatively and comprehensively based on convergence knowledge, that is, interest in the process.

Competency-Based Curriculum and University Education Outcomes
Because core competency is the ability to engage in the holistic ideal of life beyond the special competency required to perform a specific job (Lim et al., 2021), the core competency of a university is a basic requirement that all college students must have regardless of department or major. Therefore, what to teach and how to learn in university education is an ongoing educational topic. In particular, the recent 4th industrial revolution, the New Normal, and the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 are demanding a fundamental change to the conventional university education. The characteristics of the 21st century, in which social uncertainty is aggravated, boundaries between domains are becoming increasingly vague, and driving rapid change and continuous change, require a fundamental reflection on the talent nurturing paradigm.
Accordingly, the Korean government emphasizes the need to prepare a curriculum based on core competencies and provide it to students (Ministry of Education in South Korea, 2015). The competency-based curriculum transforms educational goals, which have been at an abstract level, into behavioural goals. According to the competency-based curriculum, the educational goals can be revealed in action, and the final educational goals, educational conditions, situations, and achievement standards can be clearly set throughout the course of the class. In other words, it is possible to clarify educational goals in university education, to manage the entire process by focusing on capacity building, and to effectively achieve educational outcomes (Jin et al., 2011).
In response to these demands, it is timely to reflect on university education so far, look at the challenges facing university education based on core competencies that can open the life of the future society, and seek desirable improvement directions. This study closely examines the five core competencies and sub competencies envisaged by K University, analyses the shortcomings in preparing for the new era and the future, and prepares improvement plans by reflecting the competencies required by the future society. Furthermore, through the improved core competency scale, the core competency level of current students is identified, and the characteristics of each potential profile are identified to find ways to enhance competency in college education, thereby contributing to substantialize education.

Research Design
This study was designed in the order of data review, expert review, survey, validity and reliability verification, and latent hierarchical analysis in order to develop a college student core competency diagnostic tool that reflects future competencies. First, all studies related to core competencies conducted at K University were tracked and collected, and the contents were also comprehensively analysed. And by examining the literature on the future competencies of college students, competencies to be additionally reflected were derived. The derived factors were set as sub-domains of the core competency, and a total of 75 initial questions that could best reveal the meaning of each sub-domain were developed, 5 for each sub-domain. Next, through experts, the hierarchy and categories of core competencies and sub-competencies, as well as the contents of the questionnaire, were reviewed, and opinions were collected to derive additional necessary future competencies. Some questions were revised by reflecting the expert review results, and a survey was conducted for college students. Reliability and validity were verified based on the collected data. Finally, to analyse the students' core competency level, a potential class analysis was conducted, the level and characteristics of each class' core competency were confirmed, and the differences by type were analysed.

Research Participants
The subject of this study was an online survey conducted for 5 days from April 12 to 16, 2021, targeting 15,000 students at K University in Korea, and a total of 983 people participated. The gender of the study participants was 46.7% male and 53.3% female, and the grades were 1st grade 45.3%, 2nd grade 18.5%, 3rd grade 19.6%, 4th grade 16.6%. As for major fields, 49.2% were in the humanities and social sciences, 42.9% in science and engineering, and 7.8% in the arts and sports.

Analysis Method
This study used SPSS 25.0 for Windows, AMOS 25.0 and Mplus 8.7 for data analysis. The statistical methods used were frequency analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis, T-test and ANOVA, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), latent profile analysis (LPA), and chi-square test, and the statistical significance level was set to 0.05 in all analyses.

Development of K-University Core Competency Scale
In order to improve the K-University core competency scale developed and used since 2014, the direction of improvement was set by maintaining the five core competencies and adding and supplementing sub-competencies. To this end, the core competency and sub-competencies, and the hierarchy, category, and coherence between the sub-competencies were discussed in depth. As a result, three sub-competencies were composed to each of the five core competencies, and five questionnaires were developed for the diagnosis of the fifteen sub-competencies. Except in the case of maintaining or supplementing the existing sub-competence, preliminary questions other than the five main questions were placed for the new sub-competence to be replaced by excluding questions that impair reliability or validity in the verification process. After that, content validity was verified through seven expert meetings and three online surveys. A preliminary survey was conducted for current students using the questionnaire, and the Cronbach's α was confirmed through reliability analysis. The validity was verified through factor analysis. As a result, 75 questionnaires for the 15 sub-competencies initially selected were confirmed as the final scale.

Scale Development
Since August 2013, K-University recognized the need to establish a new image of the university. It has reviewed the founding philosophy of the university and the image of social talent from various angles, and established five core competencies unique to K-University. Based on this, by reorganizing the curriculum and non-curriculum subjects, we have laid the necessary foundations to nurture students into practicing liberals, communicative collaborators, leading future people, and creativity professionals. In addition, K-University is to operate the curriculum and non-curricular curriculum appropriately for educational goals, and to diagnose and manage the competency level of current students, which can be said to be the outcome for sustainable education, and how much has changed through education (Kookmin University 2014).
The core competency scale is an essential element necessary to build such a system. By using the core competency scale, it is possible to continuously analyze the change in students' competency. In addition, it can be used as basic data to set guidelines for establishing various strategies and policies necessary to effectively operate educational programs. Students can also use the core competency scale to check their own competency level, so that they can clearly determine the areas that need improvement. It is expected that the educational performance will also increase by allowing students to set clear goals and participate in the curriculum and non-curricular subject areas (Kookmin University, 2015).
However, as mentioned at the beginning of the development of the diagnostic tool in 2014, even if it is the same core competency, the detailed sub-competencies that constitute it and the specific questions to measure it may vary according to the changes of the times. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously review and supplement the validity and reliability of diagnostic tools. The core competency scale provides a virtuous cycle structure to achieve the educational goals pursued by K-University, and through this, builds a high-quality educational environment, which ultimately contributes to cultivating 'challenging talents'.
This study is a pre-developed K-University core competency scale to enhance the excellence of the educational programs provided by K-University, ultimately lead the future, and nurture challenging talents with the ability to solve social problems. It is intended to improve the diagnostic tool by deriving future competencies that should be newly included and preparing questionnaires for diagnosing them.

Experts Review
This study aims to improve the current K-University Core Competency scale (5 core competencies, 16 sub-competencies, 87 questions), which has been developed to clearly diagnose the core competencies of current students by reflecting the changing future competencies and talents of our university. To this end, a literature review was conducted first. Through literature review, the existing unnecessary sub-competencie was removed and replaced with a new future competency, but the concept and category of the new competency did not overlap or contradict the existing competency conceptually. Through this process, the existing 16 sub-competencies of the 5 core competencies were improved and derived 15 sub-competencies, and detailed questions were developed to measure the newly added sub-competencies. Detailed questions for each sub-factor were developed primarily through literature review, and contents were reviewed and compatibility with existing questionnaires was discussed through experts in the relevant field. Through this process, 75 main items and 32 preliminary items were prepared to measure the 5 core competencies and 15 sub-competencies.
According to Lynn (1986) that the number of members of the expert group for evaluating the content validity of an item is desirable in the range of 3 to 10, a Task Force Team was formed through six experts in each field such as education, sociology, and business administration. For this expert group, seven online and offline meetings and 3 e-mail surveys were conducted to verify the validity of the new sub-competency and competency-specific questionnaires. The expert meeting was held from November 17, 2020 to the end of February 2021 to review the importance of future capabilities derived through literature review and the need to reflect the core competency diagnostic tools, and to seek ways to include them in the existing core competency diagnostic tools.
At the first meeting, the need for improvement of existing core competencies and the scope and direction were discussed as the demand for future talents due to rapid increase in social change. In order to maintain the existing tools as much as possible for comparison with the past diagnosis results and to conduct longitudinal studies, the five core competencies are maintained and the sub-areas are supplemented. To avoid conflicting values between competencies, the coherence was carefully reviewed. At the 2nd and 3rd meetings, the subcompetencies that need to be newly added were derived centered on the five core competencies, and the direction of removing unnecessary existing subcompetencies was discussed. In this process, an in-depth discussion was conducted on the composition of 15 sub-competencies that students could equip and develop during their college life. At the fourth and fifth meetings, the concepts of some sub-competencies were expanded and renamed by reflecting the opinions of experts. At the sixth meeting, the questionnaire of the changed sub-competency discussed in the process was finally reviewed, and the questionnaire maintained in the existing sub-competency was also reviewed. While reviewing the adequacy of the 15 sub-competencies, it was comprehensively reviewed to see if there were any overlapping or similar contents with the existing questions. Finally, at the seventh meeting, the 5 core competencies and 15 sub-competencies were finally reviewed, and the questionnaire was searched for and concluded using methods to improve students' practical competencies.

Validation of Scale through Preliminary Investigation Results
Content, construct, discriminant validity, and reliability were analyzed to verify the validity of the K-University core competency diagnostic tool developed through expert meetings. First, to verify construct validity, confirmatory factor analysis was performed using the structural equation model, and correlation analysis was performed to verify discriminant validity. To check the reliability of the diagnostic tool, Cronbach's α was calculated. In this study, to improve the diagnostic tool, the main question and the preliminary questions were prepared separately, and the validity and reliability were verified mainly with the main question alone, and the preliminary questions were used when the verification was difficult. Therefore, the first analysis including only the preliminary questions was first conducted, and as a result of the analysis, 15 questions on the 5 core competencies and 75 questions on the sub-competencies were confirmed as the final questions excluding the preliminary questions.

Descriptive Statistical Analysis
To understand the analysis results of the data collected through the preliminary survey, first, descriptive statistical analysis was performed on 75 main sections of the humanities competency, communication competency, globalization competency, creativity competency, professionalism competency. As a result of the analysis, there were no extreme values, and the absolute values of skewness and kurtosis were analyzed to be less than two and seven, respectively, confirming that the collected data generally satisfies normality. Among them, ethical consciousness, mutual cooperation, convergence thinking, and information utilization showed high scores with an average score of over 4.0, and it can be seen that the average score of historical consciousness, foreign language use, and challenging spirit was relatively low. The detailed results are shown in Table 1 below. Next, in order to verify construct validity for core competencies, the cross correlation among core competencies was first analyzed. As a result, the bivariate correlation coefficient between sub-competencies was in the range of .162 to .624. All were confirmed to have a statistically significant correlation (p<.01). These results can be interpreted that each core competency has an organic relationship with each other, and ultimately each sub-competency forms a construct well.

Factor Analysis
First, exploratory factor analysis was performed to statistically extract the number of factors. By examining the sample adequacy of KMO, it was checked whether the size of the correlation matrix of the sample was suitable for factor analysis. Second, the factor structure was analyzed referring to Bartlett's sphericity verification results and scree plots. Third, an orthogonal rotation method using principal component analysis and varimax was performed. The analysis sequence was conducted in the order of humanities competency, communication competency, globalization competency, creativity competency, and professionalism competency. As a result of a factor analysis on historical consciousness, ethical consciousness, and cultural sensitivity, which are sub-competencies of humanities competency, the KMO was analyzed as .853, which was close to 1, and was judged to be a valuable index value (Sung, 2019

Validation
Through the verification of the preliminary survey results, it was confirmed that the sub-factors of each core competency generally had a significant positive correlation. Several goodness-of-fit indices were reviewed for the goodness of fit of the structural equation model. This is because one goodness-of-fit index indicates the overall fitness of the model by reflecting only specific aspects of the model. In addition to the model's absolute fitness index, the standard agreement index TLI and the incremental fit index CFI are commonly used. It is recommended to use RMSEA as an index showing the simplicity of the model (Hong, 2000).
There are three criteria for structural equation model validation, and the details are as follows. First, the model is accepted or rejected through statistical verification as a single model. Second, several competing hypotheses are assumed and the most suitable model is selected through statistical verification. Among them, the third method is the most used in research, and this study tried to verify it by using the first method through a research model established through careful review of previous studies.  Table 2 shows the results of confirmatory factor analysis of humanities competency. Considering that the test is sensitive to the size of the sample, and the larger the sample size, the easier it is to reject the null hypothesis that the model and the complete collection are consistent, the other goodness-of-fit indices were also examined. The analysis results are =323.376, df=87, p=.000, q=3.717, CFI=.954, TLI=.945, NFI=.939, and RMSEA=.053. When the index values of TLI and CFI are close to 1.0, the researcher's model has a relatively better fit than the independent model (base model) with zero covariance. The RMSEA was also less than .08, thus, it can be considered that the level of approximation error is appropriate. Based on the concentration validity, the standardization coefficient, a factor load showing the relationship between the three subdomains of 'humanities competency' (historical consciousness, ethical consciousness, cultural sensitivity) and each item was within the range of .439 to .846. Further, the square values of the correlation coefficients between the factors were all found to be smaller than the AVE values, so discriminant validity could be confirmed. The convergent validity was also confirmed through CR and AVE (Thomson 2008;Fornell el al., 1981).   Table 4 shows the results of confirmatory factor analysis of globalization competency where =407.987, df=87, p=.000, q=4.690, CFI=.940, TLI=.927, NFI=.925, and RMSEA=.061. As a result of meeting the fitness index criteria, it was confirmed that the fitness was good. The researcher's model has a relatively better fit than the independent model with zero covariance. The RMSEA was also less than .08, thus, it can be judged that the approximate error level is appropriate. The standardization coefficient between the three sub-domains of 'globalization competency' (foreign language application, challenge spirit, acceptance of diversity) was .366 to .816. The criterion for judging the factor load factor is usually ±.3 or more, which is judged to be significant, so .4 is applied as a more conservative criterion. However, since there is no absolute standard for judging this, this study applied the standard of .3 (Crocker et al., 1986). The square of the correlation coefficient between the factors was all smaller than the AVE, so discriminant validity was verified  The researcher's model has a relatively better fit than the independent model with zero covariance. The RMSEA can be judged that the approximate error level is appropriate. The result of analyzing the factor load indicating the relationship among the three subdomains of convergent validity, standardization coefficient, and 'creativity' (convergent thinking, critical thinking, and problem solving) was .372 to .767. All the squares of the correlation coefficient between factors were confirmed to be smaller than the AVE, confirming the discriminant validity. The concentrated validity can be confirmed through CR and AVE (Thomson 2008;Fornell et al., 1981).  Table 6 shows the results of confirmatory factor analysis of professionalism competency where =359.182, df=87, p=.000, q=4.129, CFI=.951, TLI=.941, NFI=.937, and RMSEA=.056. The fit index criteria were good. The researcher's model has a relatively better fit than the independent model with zero covariance. The RMSEA was less than .08 and it can be judged that the approximate error level is appropriate. The standardization coefficient between the three subdomains of 'professionalism' (literacy, self-direction, information utilization) was within the range of .420 to .758. The squares of the correlation coefficients between factors were all smaller than the AVE confirming the discriminant validity.

Selection Final Items of Core Competency Scale
This study provides a tool to accurately diagnose students' humanities, communication, globalization, creativity, and professionalism competency by maintaining the existing five core competencies provided by K-University, but adding the sub competencies required by the future society. The diagnostic tool improved through this study will help a lot in realizing the educational goals of K-University to foster creative convergence talents. K-University creates and provides a competency-based curriculum to students, to be equipped with specialized majors and the ability to create new values in connection with adjacent disciplines to solve social problems.

74
I can select and utilize essential information for problem solving from among many information.

Core Competency Scale and Analysis Result 4.10.1 Descriptive Statistical Analysis
The level of core competencies and sub-competencies of 983 students who participated in the preliminary survey, based on their average, was 3.85. Among the core competencies, the average of 'communication competency' (3.99)' and 'Creativity Competency' (3.96)' was relatively high, followed by 'humanities competency' (3.85)' and 'professionalism competency' (3.85). As a result, the average of 'globalization competency' (3.58) was the lowest.
The detailed results are shown in Table 8 below.

Difference in Core Competencies between Groups According to Gender
Core competencies were diagnosed for K-university students, and differences in competency levels were analyzed according to gender. As a result of the analysis, the statistically significant differences between the male and female students were analyzed as humanities competency (t=-3.537, p<.001) and creativity competency (t=2.138, p<.05). As a result of analyzing sub-competencies, cultural sensitivity (t=-6,379 p<.001), expression (t=2.291, p<.05), mutual cooperation (t=-3.480, p<.01), challenge spirit (t=4.598, p<.001), diversity inclusion (t=-2,156 p<.05), critical thinking (t=2.860, p<.01), and problem-solving (t=2.744, p<.01). Differences between groups according to gender were confirmed. The detailed analysis results are shown in Table 9. ISSN 1927-2677E-ISSN 1927-2685 Table 10 shows the results of examining the differences in the level of each of the five core competencies according to the grades of the current students using the K-university core competency scale. As a result of the analysis, a statistically significant difference was found in professionalism competency among the five core competencies (F=6.175, p<.001), and through the Scheffe's test results, the mean of the freshmen was significant compared to the junior and senior grade groups.
Next, it was checked whether there was a difference in the level of core competencies according to grade in the 15 sub-competencies. According to the analysis results, expression of opinion (F=2.941, p<.05), foreign language use (F=5.445, p<.01), major expertise (F=3.934, p<.01), self-direction (F=4.424, p<.01) and information utilization (F=5.468, p<.01) were statistically significant. As a result of conducting the Scheffe's test to examine the differences more accurately between groups, meaningful results were derived in foreign language use, self-direction, and information literacy. In this study, the majors of K-University were divided into three departments: 'Humanities and Social Sciences', 'Science and Engineering', and 'Arts and Physical Education'. In addition, descriptive statistical analysis was conducted to confirm the level of core competencies according to the student's major. As a result of the analysis, it was only possible to confirm the difference in the competency level according to the students' major fields in the humanities competency among the core competencies (F=16.423, p<.001). As a result of the Scheffe's test, it was confirmed that the average score of humanities competency was significantly lower in 'Science and Engineering' compared to 'Humanities and Social Sciences' and 'Arts and Physical Education'.
Among the lower competencies, historical consciousness (F=10.900, p<.001), cultural sensitivity (F=17.902, p<.001), challenging spirit (F=3.649, p<.05), diversity inclusion (F=5.001, p.01), and convergent thinking (F=3.801, p<.05) showed differences in competency levels according to students' majors. To examine the differences between groups more closely, the Scheffe's test was conducted, and as a result, significant results were derived in historical consciousness, cultural sensibility, challenging spirit, diversity inclusion, and convergent thinking. Detailed analysis results are presented in Table 11.

Latent Profile Analysis
Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted according to the core competencies of current students to classify the potential groups of core competencies and to identify the characteristics of the classified groups. First, through the improved K-University Core Competency scale that reflects the opinions of experts, the humanities, communication, globalization, creativity, and professionalism competencies of university students were measured. Afterwards, the number of potential classes was derived based on the survey results answered. In order to determine the number of latent layers, Akaike Information Criteria (AIC), Baysian Information Criteria (BIC), Sample-size Adjusted BIC (SSABIC), statistical significance, and entropy, which are information fit indices, were referred to. For statistical significance testing, likelihood ratio test (LRT) and bootstrap likelihood ratio test (BLRT) were used, and the model that best explains the classification between groups was finally selected. Next, the SPSS 26.0 program was used to identify the characteristics of each potential class and to examine the differences between potential profiles more closely, classifying groups based on gender, grade, and major, which are general characteristics of college students, and analyzing the differences between groups.
The core competency level of current students was measured through the improved K-University core competency scale, and the number of potential profiles was determined after analyzing the unconditional model without exogenous variables. The analysis was conducted using a three step approach that analyzes a conditional model that includes variables that are expected to affect the analysis. This analysis method is a method of comprehensively examining the information index, verification results, statistical significance, and changes in the quality of classification while increasing the number of layers by one to determine the number of latent profiles. The analysis results are presented in Table 12. The AIC, BIC, and SABIC, which are information relevance indices, decrease slightly from four potential groups. Looking at the verification results and statistical significance, VLMRT and LMR LRT were significant up to three potential groups, and showed non-significant results from the four. Entropy, which shows the quality of classification, is an index indicating the accuracy of classification based on the posterior probability and has a standardized value from 0 to 1. The larger the entropy value, the more suitable the model. In general, more than .8 can be considered a good classification. As a result of the analysis, the entropy index gradually decreased from two to five of the latent layers, but all were good at .8 or more. As a result, considering the information index, model comparison verification, and the quality of classification, it was judged that this study best explains hierarchical heterogeneity when the number of potential profiles for college students' core competencies is three. Therefore, a model with four latent profiles was selected as the final model by comprehensively considering classification criteria and interpretability.
Finally, the quality of the classification was checked through the posterior hierarchical membership probability. In general, it can be said that the classification is relatively accurate when the probability of belonging to the posterior class is .7 or higher (Nagin et al., 2005). Looking at the diagonals of the matrix in the mean posterior probability table in Table 13, group 1 was 90.9%, group 2 was 93.5%, and group 3 was 93.4%. All of the hierarchical classification probabilities were above .8, which was close to 1, confirming that the hierarchical classification was performed correctly. According to the results of the diagnosis of the core competencies of college students, three potential classes were classified, and for each class, Tier 1 was named 'upper group', Tier 2 was 'middle group', and Tier 3 was 'lower group'. Table 14 shows the descriptive statistical analysis results of the potential classes extracted according to the humanities, communication, globalization, creativity, and professionalism competency that make up the core competencies.
Looking at the characteristics of each group in detail, the core competency subgroup accounts for 21.6% of the total respondents, and shows low scores in humanities, communication, globalization, creativity, and professionalism competency. Among them, the average communication competency is the highest at 3.46, and the globalization competency is the lowest at 3.04. About 52.8% of the respondents were included in the median group, and all the core competency diagnostic scores were higher than those of the subgroup. As for the average score, communication competency was the highest at 3.97, followed by creativity, humanities, professionalism, and globalization competency. Finally, 25.6% of all respondents belonged to the upper group, and the core competency score was higher than that of the middle group. The sub-competency with the highest average is creativity with a score of 4.51, followed by communication, professionalism, humanities, and globalization competency. As for the core competencies of college students, the communication competency score is the highest in all classes and the globalization competency score is the lowest. The results of analyzing the classification ratio of the potential group according to the characteristics of the respondent are presented in Table 15. First, the classification ratio of the latent group was confirmed based on gender, grade, and major, which are characteristics of the respondent, and compared with the overall classification ratio. The test was performed to determine whether the distribution of the latent group appears differently depending on the characteristics of the respondent. As a result of the analysis, there was no statistically significant difference in the distribution of latent groups according to the characteristics of the respondents, such as gender, grade, and major. Looking at the differences between potential groups according to gender characteristics, it was found that the proportion of women in the upper group was relatively lower than that of men, and the probability of being included in the median group was high. Looking at the differences between latent profiles according to the characteristics of the grade, the probability of belonging to a subgroup gradually decreases as the grade increases. Lastly, looking at the differences between latent profiles according to the characteristics of majors, students majoring in humanities and social sciences have the lowest probability of belonging to the lower group and the highest probability of belonging to the upper group. On the other hand, students majoring in science and engineering showed the highest probability of belonging to the lower group, while the lowest probability of belonging to the upper group.

Discussion
This study reflected future competencies in the core competencies of K-University, and improved and validated diagnostic tools. Using the improved diagnostic tool, the core competency level of college students was diagnosed and analyzed. The discussion presented in the process and results of this study is summarized as follows.
First, information competency was identified as the future competency newly required for college students in this era. The experts who participated in this study agreed that information competency is important to college students and that it should be improved by including information competency in the core competency. As a result of these results, it has been confirmed in many previous studies that college students' information competency is a must-have for college students in the recently changed environment (Han et al., 2016).
Second, as a result of improving the core competencies by reflecting the educational philosophy, goals, and vision of K-University, we were able to finally identify 5 core competencies and 15 sub competencies. Competencies can be divided into cognitive competencies and non-cognitive competencies, and all of these competencies can be acquired through the coursework and extracurricular programs offered by universities (Kwon 2020). In the case of non-cognitive ability, it is difficult to improve over time, whereas cognitive ability can be sufficiently improved depending on what students learn at university, so it is necessary for universities to fully reflect this in their curriculum (Spenser et al., 1993).
Third, as a result of classifying potential profiles according to the core competency diagnosis results of K-University students, they could be divided into three groups: upper group, middle group, and lower group according to competency level. Among them, the middle group contained the most students. Next, the upper group, and finally, the lower group included many students. As a result of a chi-square test to determine whether the distribution of the latent group differs according to the characteristics of the respondent, there was no difference in the distribution of the latent group according to the characteristics of the respondent (gender, grade, major). However, in terms of gender, it was confirmed that the proportion of women in the upper group was relatively lower than that of men, the probability of being included in the median group was high, and the probability of belonging to the lower group gradually decreases as the grades go up. Lastly, according to the characteristics of the major, the humanities and social sciences have the lowest probability of belonging to the lower group and the highest probability of belonging to the upper group. On the other hand, science and engineering had the highest probability of belonging to the lower group and the lowest probability of belonging to the upper group. This supports the argument of previous studies that it is necessary to develop and provide customized education and training programs according to the core competency level of college students (Lee 2013;Han et al., 2016;Kwon 2020). This study was conducted with the aim of improving the core competencies developed and used by K-University by reflecting the future competencies required by the society, and improving the diagnostic tools for this purpose. To this end, the systematic scale development procedure suggested by previous studies was applied, the opinions of experts were reflected, and the final draft reflecting the educational philosophy, goals, and vision of K-University was finalized. In addition, by using the improved diagnostic tool, the core competency level of current students was investigated, and the validity of the scale was verified.

Conclusion
This study is significant in that it is improved by reflecting the future capabilities required by the new era of the university due to the fantasy of the university. To this end, through the reviews of literature and expert, humanities competency, communication competency, globalization competency, creativity competency, professionalism competency could be organized and 15 core competencies and 15 sub -competencies. Since then, data can be collected and analyzed to college students to secure the reliability and validity of the tool. Through the core competency diagnostic tools that have been improved by this study, college students have prepared a plan to diagnose and secure the level of future competencies, and follow-up studies have been able to continue related research through the understanding and importance of core competencies in college students. However, there is a limit to generalization in that this study has selected only college students who are attending a certain university in a country. In addition, it is revealed that the study is not considered the socioeconomic status and the learning environment of parents, which are various factors that affect the level of developmental development of college students. In subsequent studies, if you collect and analyze a variety of data on the background variables of college students, you will be able to derive more meaningful research results.