Which professional skills do students learn in engineering team-based projects?

Cyril Picard,Cécile Hardebolle,Roland Tormey,Jürg Schiffmann

doi:10.1080/03043797.2021.1920890

Cyril Picard, Cécile Hardebolle + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2021.1920890

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Abstract

ABSTRACT Engineering accreditation bodies express a strong consensus that in addition to technical and scientific skills, engineering education also needs to promote the development of professional skills. In general, team-based projects are considered to be valuable approaches to develop such skills and have been extensively added to engineering curricula. Yet, it remains unclear which skills and to what extent students learn from these interventions. The challenge of assessing the development of those skills is an important factor in this gap. In this paper, we used a standardised self-reporting questionnaire to evaluate the development of students' self-efficacy beliefs through in-course and capstone projects. Results suggest that students only marginally develop these skills when they are not explicitly addressed as part of the project, showing ways to more effectively support student learning of professional skills. The questionnaire also proved to be an effective and scalable way to assess large classes.

Highlights

Most national and cross-national engineering accreditation bodies (e.g. ABET1 in the United States, ENAE2 at the European level and IEA3 at the International level) have included ‘professional skills’ in their requirements for accrediting engineering programs for years (Shuman, Besterfield-Sacre, and McGourty, 2005; Winberg et al, 2020)
The results show a positive trend on the total Interprofessional Project Management Questionnaire (IPMQ) score and a significant increase over the course of the project on interprofessional competence (p
The results suggest none or limited impact of these projects on the learning of professional skills, even though these results reflect the combined effect of several projects students participated in during the same time frame (Median 2, IQR = 1–4, see Table 5)

Summary

Introduction

Most national and cross-national engineering accreditation bodies (e.g. ABET1 in the United States, ENAE2 at the European level and IEA3 at the International level) have included ‘professional skills’ in their requirements for accrediting engineering programs for years (Shuman, Besterfield-Sacre, and McGourty, 2005; Winberg et al, 2020). There is no clear consensus on the exact set of skills under the term ‘professional skills’ ( called ‘soft’, ‘transferable’, ‘transversal’ or even ‘21st Century’ skills), there seems to be an overall agreement that engineering education should address science and engineering and social, ethical, and organisational aspects of engineers’ practices and responsibilities (Kolmos and Holgaard, 2019; Winberg et al, 2020). Communication, teamwork, and organisational abilities are featured prominently in sources looking at labour-market needs such as employer and alumni surveys (Carter, 2011; Itani and Srour, 2016; Craps et al, 2017) or in occupational databases such as O*NET in the US4, which provide information on the skills considered important for current engineering positions. With growing concerns regarding the automation of jobs and the rise of outsourcing and globalisation, studies have attempted to predict the evolution of those needs. Frey and Osborne (2017) have

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