GLOBAL COMPETENCE NEEDS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STAKEHOLDERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON ENGINEERING EDUCATION

GLOBAL COMPETENCE NEEDS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STAKEHOLDERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON ENGINEERING EDUCATION

T. Richter, B. Kjellgren, E. Arnó-Macià, K. Fleischhauer (2023).  GLOBAL COMPETENCE NEEDS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STAKEHOLDERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 931-940.

Upon graduation, engineering graduates will find themselves in diverse, interconnected, and fast-paced work environments. Global competence, which encompasses different types of knowledge, skills and attitudes, is what will help them navigate successfully through the variety of situations they may encounter. Accordingly, its development should be an integrated core aspect of today’s engineering education. Acknowledging the problems with current approaches to doing so – in particular, the vagueness of the concept and the issues of prioritizing learning content in already crowded curricula - this paper compares the perceived need and value of specific competencies according to key stakeholders. Based on a previous literature review, a survey focusing on a set of 15 frequently mentioned competences was developed and distributed internationally. The perspectives of three types of stakeholders - engineering professionals (n=339), educators (n=200), and students (n=331) – were collected and broadly analyzed according to the perceived importance of the competencies. Overall, we found agreement among the stakeholder groups, and the majority of our proposed competences were perceived as either important or very important by the respondents. Among the competences, teamwork and collaboration and English language skills stood out, while other language skills were perceived as less important. Comparing the groups, we found that professionals tended to value several social competences more highly and subject-specific competences less highly than academic stakeholders. In our discussion, we offer possible explanations for these findings, which allow inferences for educational change towards a more globally competent higher engineering education.

Authors (New): 
Tanja Richter
Björn Kjellgren
Elisabet Arnó-Macià
Karen Fleischhauer
Pages: 
931-940
Affiliations: 
KTH Royal Institute of Technology,Sweden
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain
Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
Keywords: 
Global competence
Integrated Learning
Curriculum Development
Stakeholder Perspectives
Engineering education
CDIO Standard 2
CDIO Standard 3
CDIO Standard 7
CDIO Standard 8
CDIO Standard 10
Year: 
2023
Reference: 
Bazgan, M., & Norel, M. (2013). Explicit and implicit assessment of intercultural competence. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 76, 95–99. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.04.080: 
Brundiers, K., & Wiek, A. (2017). Beyond interpersonal competence: Teaching and learning professional skills in sustainability. Education Sciences, 7(1). : 
Corple, D. J., Zoltowski, C. B., Kenny Feister, M., & Buzzanell, P. M. (2020). Understanding ethical decision-making in design. Journal of Engineering Education, 109(2), 262-280. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20312: 
Craps, S., Pinxten, M., Knipprath, H., & Langie, G. (2020). Exploring professional roles for early career engineers: a systematic literature review. European Journal of Engineering Education, 46(2), 266-286. doi:10.1080/03043797.2020.1781062: 
Crawley, E. F., Malmqvist, J., Östlund, S., Brodeur, D., R, & Edström, K. (2014). Rethinking engineering education - The CDIO Approach (2 ed.). New York: Springer-Verlag.: 
Downey, G., & Lucena, J. (2005). National identities in multinational worlds: engineers and 'engineering cultures'. International journal of continuing engineering education and life-long learning, 15, 252-260. : 
Downey, G., Lucena, J., Moskal, B., Parkhurst, R., Bigely, T., Hays, C., . . . Nichols-Belo, A. (2006). The globally competent engineer: Working effectively with people who define problems differently. Journal of Engineering Education, 95(2), 107-122. doi:10.1002/j.2168-9830.2006.tb00883.x: 
Garcia-Esteban, S., & Jahnke, S. (2020). Skills in European higher education mobility programmes: Outlining a conceptual framework. Higher Education, Skills and Work-based Learning, 10(3), 519-539. : 
Garcia, C., & Pinela, A. (2018). Engineering challenges in terms of academic and professional training. In M. E. Auer & K.-S. Kim (Eds.), Engineering education for a smart society. World engineering education forum & global engineering deans council 2016 (Vol. 627, pp. 191-203): Springer.: 
Jesiek, B. K., Zhu, Q., Woo, S. E., Thompon, J., & Mazzurco, A. (2014). Global engineering competency in context: Situations and behaviors. Online Journal of Global Engineering Education, 8(1). : 
Jørgensen, U. (2012). Tensions in developing engineering design competencies. In S. Hyldgaard Christensen, C. Mitcham, B. Li, & Y. An (Eds.), Engineering, development and philosophy. American, Chinese and European perspectives (pp. 215-231). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Science+Business Media.: 
Kahn, H. E., & Agnew, M. (2017). Global learning through difference: Considerations for teaching, learning, and the internationalization of higher education. Journal of Studies in International Education, 21(1), 52-64. doi:10.1177/1028315315622022: 
Kang, J. H., Kim, S. Y., Jang, S., & Koh, A. R. (2018). Can college students’ global competence be enhanced in the classroom? The impact of cross- and inter-cultural online projects. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 55(6), 683-693. : 
Leask, B. (2005). Internationalizing the curriculum. Abington: Routledge.: 
Pais-Montes, C., Freire-Seoane, M. J., & López-Bermúdez, B. (2019). Employability traits for engineers: A competencies-based approach. Industry and Higher Education, 33(5), 308-326. doi:10.1177/0950422219854616: 
Quelhas, O. L. G., Lima, G. B. A., Ludolf, N. V. E., Meiriño, M. J., Abreu, C., Anholon, R., . . . Rodrigues, L. S. G. (2019). Engineering education and the development of competencies for sustainability. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 20(4), 614-629. doi:10.1108/IJSHE-07-2018-0125: 
Richter, T., & Kjellgren, B. (2022, 19-22 September). Supporting global competence learning for engineering students: Four key lessons (to be) learnt. Paper presented at the 50th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, Barcelona.: 
Schech, S., Kelton, M., Carati, C., & Kingsmill, V. (2017). Simulating the global workplace for graduate employability. Higher Education Research & Development, 36(7), 1476-1489. doi:10.1080/07294360.2017.1325856: 
Go to top
randomness