Relationship Between Professional Competencies Required by Engineering Students According to ABET and CDIO and Teaching–Learning Techniques

Abstract

Contribution: To guide engineering educators on the complex path of understanding how to teach future engineers and how they can help engineering students to obtain the professional competencies required by frameworks and syllabus, based on didactic techniques that determine an orderly learning process. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</i> University education is committed to change and adaptation to the current and new realities of the world. The framework for measuring the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) outcomes and Conceive– Design–Implement–Operate (CDIO) syllabus have developed a list of competencies required by engineering students, encouraging universities to meet real-world needs. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Intended Outcomes:</i> Rethinking the role of engineering education and the purpose of education in the engineer’s professional development, proposing a roadmap for engineering educators, helping them to define which teaching–learning techniques to apply to develop the competencies and skills that university and industry require from future engineers. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Application Design:</i> A relationship is shown between the competencies that today’s engineers must have according to ABET criterion 3 (i.e., student outcomes), which are required for continuous accreditation of the engineering and CDIO syllabus, and the respective didactic techniques considered in this research. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Findings:</i> To develop competencies, students should be taught based on different teaching–learning techniques in higher education. A relationship is proposed for the engineering educator, showing them which didactic technique could be adequate to be applied in the classroom to develop in students the specific competencies established by ABET (SO1 to SO7) and CDIO (SL1 to SL4).