PROFESSIONALISM FOR ENGINEERS: SOFT SKILLS IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION TO PREPARE FOR PROFESSIONAL LIFE

Home » PROFESSIONALISM FOR EN ...

PROFESSIONALISM FOR ENGINEERS: SOFT SKILLS IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION TO PREPARE FOR PROFESSIONAL LIFE

A. Berglund (2018).  PROFESSIONALISM FOR ENGINEERS: SOFT SKILLS IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION TO PREPARE FOR PROFESSIONAL LIFE. 11.
2018 14th International CDIO Conference, Kanazawa IT, Japan
PDF icon 127_Final_PDF.pdf

A strong set of hard and soft skills are required for an engineer to succeed in today’s teambased workplaces. In order to prepare students for the profession, engineering education needs to focus on both. However, traditional engineering programs do not place enough emphasis on the development of soft skills, despite the guidelines specified in CDIO Standard 2: Learning Outcomes. Our proposition is that by focusing on soft skills such as self-motivation and personal leadership skills, students will be better prepared for professional practice and their academic performance will benefit as well. In this paper we present an innovative approach for teaching soft skills that we have implemented in the course “Professionalism for Engineers, PE” offered in two 5-year programs in computer science. A variety of tools are presented in the class and students get experience using them in mandatory assignments. Reflection is a fundamental assessment method in the course and reflective writing based on the Gibbs reflective cycle (Gibbs, 1988) is applied, as well as the Dialogue Seminar Method, to develop the students’ reflective ability and to allow them to learn from their own and others’ experiences. Among the lessons covered, students say the most rewarding include lessons that involve students from other disciplines, such as psychology students, and the use of the Dialogue Seminar Method with groups of students from years 1, 2, and 3. The effect this course has on academic and professional performance is hard to assess this far. Based on the experiences of the PE, a new course has been developed for two 3-year programs in computer engineering and engineering electronics. The new course is described in this paper. Students in the 5-years programs who have finished the PE will be mentors in the course. 

Authors (New): 
Aseel Berglund
Pages: 
11
Affiliations: 
Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
Keywords: 
Personal development
personal effectiveness
social competence
Communication
Teamwork
Motivation
Ethics
financial acumen
CDIO Standard 2
Year: 
2018
Reference: 
Achor, S. (2012). Positive intelligence. Harvard Business Review, 90(1–2). : 
Backlund, G., & Sjunnesson, J. (2012). Training young engineers to see. AI and Society, 27(4), 509– 515. : 
Berglund, A., & Heintz, F. (2014). Integrating Soft Skills into Engineering Education for Increased Student Throughput and more Professional Engineers. LTHs 8:e Pedagogiska Inspirationskonferens, (December).: 
Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university. Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. : 
Cajander, A. ., Daniels, M. ., McDermott, R. ., & von Konsky, B. R. . (2011). Assessing professional skills in engineering education. Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology Series, 114, 145–154. : 
Capretz, L. F., & Ahmed, F. (2010). Why do we need personality diversity in software engineering? ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 35(2), 1. : 
Cherniss, C., Extein, M., Goleman, D., & Weissberg, R. P. (2006). Emotional Intelligence : What Does the Research Really Indicate ? Emotional Intelligence : What Does the Research Really Indicate ? Educational Psychologist, 41(4), 239–245. : 
Cimatti, B. (2016). Definition, development, assessment of soft skills and their role for the quality of organizations and enterprises. International Journal for Quality Research, 10(1), 97–130. : 
Courter, S., Anderson, K. J. B., Mcglamery, T., & Kelly, T. N. (2000). Lifelong Learning. : 
Crawley, E. F., & Lucas, W. a. (2011). The CDIO Syllabus v2 . 0 An Updated Statement of Goals for Engineering EducationB. Engineering Education, 24, 1–4. : 
Curry, J. F., Wells, K. C., Lochman, J. E., Craighead, W. E., & Nagy, P. D. (2003). Cognitivebehavioral intervention for depressed, substance-abusing adolescents: Development and pilot testing. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 42(6), 656–665. : 
Dacre Pool, L., & Sewell, P. (2007). The key to employability: developing a practical model of graduate employability. Education + Training, 49(4), 277–289. : 
Faheem, A., Fernando Capretz, L., Bouktif, S., & Campbell, P. (2013). Soft Skills and Software Development: A Reflection from Software Industry. International Journal of Information Processing and Management, 4(3), 171–191. : 
Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford Further Education Unit. : 
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. New York, NY: Bantam Books: 
Goleman, D., & Boyatzis, R. (2017). Emotional Intelligence Has 12 Elements. Which Do You Need to Work On? Harvard Business Review, 10–15. : 
Göranzon, B., & Hammarèn, M. (2006). The methodology of the dialogue seminar. In B. Goranzon, M. Hammeron, & R. Ennals (Eds.), Dialogue, skill and tacit knowledge (pp. 57–68). London: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.: 
Joseph, D., Ang, S., Chang, R. H. L., & Slaughter, S. a. (2010). Practical intelligence in IT: Assessing soft skills of IT professionals. Communications of the ACM, 53(2), 149–154. : 
Kumar, S., & Hasiao, J. K. (2007). Engineers Learn “Soft Skills the Hard Way”: Planting a Seed of Leadership in Engineering Classes. Leadership and Management in Engineering, 7(1), 18–23.: 
Nguyen, D. Q. (1998). The Essential Skills and Attributes of an Engineer: A Comparative Study of Academics, Industry Personnel and Engineering Students. Business, 2(1), 65–76.: 
Parts, V., Teichmann, M., & Rüütmann, T. (2013). Would Engineers Need Non-technical Skills or Nontechnical Competences or Both ? International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy, 3(2), 14–19. : 
Roan, A., & Whitehouse, G. (2007). Women, information technology and waves of optimism: Australian evidence on mixed-skill jobs. New Technology, Work and Employment, 22(1), 21–33. : 
Shepard, L. A. (2000). The Role of Assessment in a Learning Culture. American Educational Research Association, 29(7), 4–14. : 
Thinyane, H. (2013). Academic perceptions of the ideal computer science student. South African Computer Journal, (50), 28–40. : 
Tong, L. F. (2003). dentifying essential learning skills in students’ engineering education. In Proceedings of HERDSA.: 
Wheelan, S. A. (1994). Group processes: A developmental perspective. Allyn & Bacon.: 
Woratschek, C. R., & Lenox, T. L. (2002). Information Systems Entry-Level Job Skills: A Survey of Employers. Information Systems Educators Conference, (April), Vol. 19.: 
on January 21, 2019 - 20:00   Tyrone Machado
  • Printer-friendly version
Go to top
randomness