Professional competencies in engineering education: the PREFERed-way

Professional competencies vary across engineering job characteristics. The design of the educational environment should take into account this diversity and enable students to develop career awareness. The European project PREFER (Professional Roles and Employability for Future EngineeRs) has developed instruments to make engineering students aware of the existence of professional roles and their associated competency profiles. These are designed and validated in strong interaction with industry, guaranteeing a discipline-independent, future-proof framework that is ready to implement in the engineering curriculum. In this paper, we describe the integration of this framework in the Faculty of Engineering Technology of KU Leuven, Belgium. The selection of professional competencies based on professional roles, the adaptive level of the professional competencies thanks to electives and the collaborative assessment of the students by experts in professional competencies and experts in technological competencies, are key elements of the new engineering curriculum. All of them are developed thanks to a university-business collaboration. The reformed curriculum will start from the academic year 2020-2021

Students’ perceptions of a major engineering curriculum reform

As the demands of industry are evolving and new generations of students are entering universities, many engineering faculties invest time in curriculum reforms based on inspirational innovations, underpinned by engineering education research. The Faculty of Engineering Technology (FET) of KU Leuven had an additional argument to implement a huge programme reform: this faculty, hosting more than 6000 students spread across seven campuses in Flanders (Belgium), was an amalgam of different traditions and visions. Their merger into one faculty in 2013 aimed to optimize the organisation of research, education and community service. The goal of the programme reform in 2020-2021 was fourteenfold: enhancing our typical profile of (1) hands-on engineering in (2) strong interaction with the labour market and setting up (3) a technology hub with more attention to (4) multidisciplinarity, (5) professional competencies, (6) personal development & support, (7) lifelong learning and (8) challenges including (9) complex problem solving. The reform also aims to increase the (10) attractiveness and (11) social relevance of the programmes. By strengthening the internal coherence in the faculty, we can exploit the (12) multicampus narrative to offer students more choices and develop their (13) future disciplinary self, supported by (14) choice guidance. This paper describes how the curriculum was adapted in order to achieve these goals and presents the results of perception measurements organised among freshmen who followed the old programme in 2019-2020 and freshmen registered in the new programme in 2020-2021. Of foremost importance is the increased feeling that the professional competencies are essential for an engineer

A Look Inside The Engineering Students’ Backpack: Differences In Engineering Capital According To Gender Or Migration Background.

Every student has a unique combination of experiences, resources and social networks related to engineering, called ‘engineering capital’, derived from Archer’s concept of ‘science capital’. The engineering capital gathered throughout life creates a backpack that impacts someone’s aspirations to study engineering, as well as the performance and persistence in the programme itself. Engineering technology is one of the most homogeneous fields within the STEM domain, being mostly white and male. To stimulate a more diverse engineering technology field, this research paper investigates the relationship between the level of engineering capital and gender or migration background, as well as the influence of engineering capital on aspiration and performance within the engineering technology field. Through an online survey, last-year secondary education pupils in math/science tracks (N = 490, March 2023), and first-year engineering technology students (N =391, October 2022) in Belgium were asked about their engineering capital, and engineering aspiration (pupils) or performance (students). Results disclose little difference in engineering capital, engineering aspiration, or engineering performance for students with a migration background. However, female pupils appear to have less engineering capital than male pupils, and in need of more engineering capital to gain an interest in engineering technology compared to male pupils. Once women start the engineering technology program, engineering capital does not influence female students’ performance differently than male students. It is possible that only those with a heavy backpack of engineering capital find their way to the program. That is why it is important that educators stimulate students’ engineering capital

A situational judgement test for engineers to evaluate their professional strengths & weaknesses

This paper reports on the development and evaluation of a 23 item Situational Judgement Test (SJT) with scenarios tailored to the engineering profession. The SJT was developed around the PREFER model, with the support of professional engineers and academics in 11 panel discussions. In total 53 engineering professionals and academics were consulted during the development of both the item stems and the item responses of the SJT. Subsequently, the SJT was rolled out to 334 final year and masters students enrolled in engineering programmes at TU Dublin and KU Leuven respectively. After taking part in the test, students were sent automated reports on their performance and the test which highlighted how their response compared to a response gathered from a professional engineer with feedback on how they might improve their competence in a particular area, while also commending their performance in other areas. The results of this study highlight that 8 SJT items had significantly lower mean scores when compared with the test-mean. These items, which were related to perseverance, client focus, vision, planning and organising, solution orientation, team player, work organisation, clear communication and networking all represent potential competence deficits in the population of final year and master students that were tested. This work adds to engineering education scholarship by providing an engineering-specific SJT that enables educators to identify areas of relative strength and weakness in students’ professional judgements in order to better prepare them for their future careers

Enhancing (future) students’ sense of belonging to increase diversity and inclusion in engineering

The shortage of engineering talent leads to a loss in economic output. This shortagecombat has to be fought on several fronts, one of them is attracting and retaining more currently underrepresented students. This paper discusses the need to improve a sense of belonging and to increase professional awareness, or the understanding of the different roles an engineer can take on, in order to increase diversity in engineering. Based on an extensive literature review an overview is given of previous research on this topic from an interdisciplinary perspective. Research has shown that professional identity development has high impact on persistence and study success. Although identity development is a hot topic in engineering education research, several studies indicate that engineering students still have difficulties in grasping what it is to be an engineer and often fall back upon the rather stereotypical, harsh technological, male image. However, research also shows that it is important for students to know what to expect and value in order to develop feelings of belonging or fit. The former European project PREFER has developed promising tools in this regard. However, these tools have not been tested regarding inclusiveness. The paper also outlines the next steps that will be taken by the authors as part of an interdisciplinary project URGENT to increase attractiveness and retention of underrepresented groups in engineering education. This URGENT project proceeds on the outcomes of the PREFER project and will focus on the attraction and retention of female students and students with a migration background

Lifelong learning as an explicit part of engineering programmes: what can we do as educators?

Whilst engineering education has primarily focused on providing students with the required technical competencies, new visions emphasise the importance of lifelong learning (LLL). They point towards the need to acquire the necessary competencies for LLL during the study programme. This requires a shift in mindset for both lecturers and students. Other studies have provided some key recommendations on how HEIs should integrate the development of LLL competencies in study programmes such as using authentic discipline-specific learning contexts and explicit teaching of the LLL competencies. This scoping review will provide an overview of which LLL interventions have already been implemented in higher education and aims to answer the question: How can HEIs support the development of students’ LLL competencies? The included LLL interventions are categorised based on the type and content of the intervention, the duration, the target audience, the effectiveness, and the efficiency. The outcomes of this review serve a dual purpose: (1) to define research gaps and (2) to provide educators with some general advice regarding the integration of LLL in engineering study programmes