La contribución de la formación continua al crecimiento económico, a través de sus factores clave. Una perspectiva europea

Abstract

This thesis was conducted in order to study the existence of the relationship between lifelong learning and economic growth.The main objective was to develop a framework based on theory that encloses a larger set of variables associated with the construct of lifelong learning. This is based on criticisms made by some authors concerning the problematic of assessing this type of training.These authors mostly associate lifelong learning with traditional training, reason why the relationship explored by this study, in some cases, could not be met.Based on this context, this research study proposes a framework that aims to capture the key factors that identify training, taking into account both the literature review as well as the questionnaires used by Eurostat to gather information on the status of continuing vocational training in business organizations within member countries.Furthermore, once the framework has been developed, it was assessed by using structural equation models. This technique has been proved ideal for this study due to the fact that it acquaints multivariate method characteristics, which allows the exploration of a number of variables that facilitates to accurately unfold the concept of lifelong learning.This assessment has been carried out following two stages. On the one hand, the study of the variables has been conducted in order to analyze whether the variables conditions met the assessment method criteria. On the other, the second stage was related with the application of the estimation technique, which implied assessing the framework both concerning measures and structural standpoints, as well as appraising the analysis of results.Finally, conclusions were drawn, acknowledging the study limitations and put forward guidelines for action