Undergraduate Student's perceptions of factors that enable and inhibit their professional skill development

Abstract

The need for Engineering graduates who can balance strong technical competencies with broader professional and transversal capabilities has been well recognised for at least 20 years (National Academy of Engineering, 2004, King, 2008, Royal Academy of Engineering, 2007, Confederation of British Industry 2009). More recently, this has seen critical analyses of the specific competencies that are desirable (e.g. Passow & Passow, 2017) and the approaches that are suited to the development of these skills (e.g. Winberg et al, 2016) In response to calls from industry and recognition by universities of underdeveloped professional skills in their students, there has been a move towards a more integrated approach to preparing undergraduate students for professional practice. This often involves the integration of professional skills training and development within the more traditional engineering science curricula. This has also been reflected in the strengthening of professional skills development criteria within various engineering accreditation frameworks (ABET, 2011; Engineers Australia, 2018).In part to address these issues various institutions have introduced integrative curricula (Lowe and Goldfinch, 2021). Two of these institutions, the XXX, Australia and the YYY, London both have introduced integrated engineering programs that are embedded through all years of students’ engineering degree programs. At the XXX integrated engineering consists of four multidisciplinary units typically undertaken in consecutive years as students’ progress through their degree. The units use online instruction and a series of workshops to undertake multidisciplinary engineering projects to address authentic, real world projects and workplace challenges and practices that require the integration, application and demonstration of students’ technical and professional skills. Brookfield states that learning that challenges and stretches students, asks them to think critically or use their judgement to deal with uncertainty and complexity, often induces resistance (Brookfield 2017). Similarly, engineering students tend to have diverse reactions to the teaching of broader professional competencies, with many students reacting negatively to the elements of their degree that focus on their broader professional development. This study explored the nature of these student reactions and in particular aims to move past the common assumption that student’s attitudes relate to their perception that professional elements are not “real engineering”. Understanding students’ views on what enables and inhibits their engagement with learning activities associated with these competencies will enable universities to adapt their curriculum to maximise the quality of demonstrated learning outcomes related to professional skill development.