Soft Skills in Engineers, a Relevant Field of Research: Exploring and Assessing Skills in Italian Engineering Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeria Caggiano ◽  
Teresa Redomero-Echeverría ◽  
Jose-Luis Poza-Lujan ◽  
Andrea Bellezza
Keyword(s):  
Impression Management ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
Reference Sample ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Change Perception ◽  
Emotional Adaptation ◽  
Challenging Tasks ◽  
Relevant Field

Soft skills are important for any career and are necessary to access and face the labor market. This research focuses on soft skills by exploring engineer profiles. It also determines how soft skills are developed through the study of a representative sample of 314 undergraduate engineering students from 15 different Italian universities. The instrument used is a questionnaire that investigates soft skills and is based on the Business-focused Inventory of Personality (BIP). Answers are grouped into four areas: intrapersonal, interpersonal, activity development, and impression management. Results show that these engineers have more self-confidence than the reference sample; they demonstrated a great commitment in setting job goals and pursuing projects, a good emotional adaptation to social situations, and enough attitudes in terms of problem solving and openness to change. Perception on the ability to work under pressure is in the average, and they seem ready to take on challenging tasks. The score shows that engineers from the sample are able to express positive and negative ideas and feelings in balance with the reference average, but sometimes they have difficulties in establishing personal relationships. Therefore, they are unable to understand the moods of those who around them and may also have difficulty in understanding their expectations. This results in some difficulties in teamwork. The general result underlines the opportunity of empowerment programs regarding soft skills.

scholarly journals Perceptions of Undergraduate Students of Islamic Studies of the Importance of Soft Skills for Education and Future Career at King Khalid University

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
pp. 95-104
Author(s):  
Mesfer Ahmed Mesfer Alwadai
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
Sampling Error ◽  
Target Population ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Future Career ◽  
Self Confidence

This paper examines Islamic undergraduate students’ awareness and perceptions of the importance of soft skills for education and future career among undergraduate students of Islamic Studies at King Khalid University. The study is carried out to redirect the focus of undergraduate students' training and development goals to the acquisition of soft skills, which have a very high effect on improving undergraduate student’s performances. This study aims to discover student awareness and perception towards the importance of soft skills among engineering students. This study adopted a quantitative research approach. A questionnaire was administered and used to gather the data.  Also, the questionnaire was specifically designed to examine the importance of soft skills for education and future career for Islamic Studies undergraduate students. The target population in this study consisted of 4500 Islamic undergraduate students. The purposive sample was 300 students were randomly selected from the population with an 85 percent confidence level within 0.05 risk of sampling error. The findings of the study indicated that   Islamic undergraduate students at King Khalid University were aware of the importance of soft skills for their education and future carrier as well. Participants ranked the following soft skills as the essential skills for Islamic undergraduate students' improving decision making, besides a greater willingness to accept the ideas of others, improving leadership skills, oral and verbal communication, a gain in self-confidence, small group discussions, and learned more about technology and various applications. They thought soft skills are important for accelerating students’ academic performance and developing the learning environment while less important for finding a better job opportunity and considering it a primary employment requirement by modern workplaces.

Impression Management

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Long
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Impression Management ◽  
Romantic Partners ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
Favorable Light ◽  
Intended Effect

Impression management is defined as controlling how one is seen by others. Most of the important outcomes in life, including friends, romantic partners, job opportunities, and happiness, are contingent on how one is perceived in social situations. Since the 1950s scholars across multiple disciplines of social science have noted the importance of impression management and have developed key theoretical interpretations and taxonomies of how, why, and for whom impression management occurs and whether it is likely to have its intended effect. Virtually any behavior can be used for impression management purposes, and the desired outcomes range from positive, when the behaviors are intended to be seen in a favorable light, to negative, when the behaviors are intended to be seen in an unfavorable light. Although impression management has been relatively free of controversy as a scholarly topic, some disagreements have formed around the ethics of managing impressions, how to best measure impression management, and whether impression management explains some of the more venerable topics in social science such as prosocial behavior, cognitive dissonance, and moral judgment. A typical episode of impression management occurs when an actor performs an act in the hope of influencing targets in a certain way, and scholarly work has noted the importance of the target in this process since the target is not only the audience who judges the actors’ performances but also the critic who provides the actors with feedback that can be used in subsequent performances. Other work has investigated how easy it is to mismanage an impression, such as when “humble bragging” and giving “backhanded compliments.”

Spontaneous Involvement and Social Life

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Ostrow
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Impression Management ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Erving Goffman ◽  
The Social

Throughout his writings, Erving Goffman develops the principle that successful impression management requires an appearance of “spontaneous involvement” as evidence of individuals' sincerity. Goffman never articulates this principle in terms of how persons are actually—indeed, as he sometimes recognizes, necessarily involved spontaneously in the social environment. This paper asks: What does it mean for our reading of Goffman and of social situations generally if we move the proposition of the experiential necessity of spontaneous involvement to the center of sociological analysis? I discuss why it never moved to the center of Goffman's inquiries, and then argue that a theory of habit facilitates an elaborate of its sociological significance.

scholarly journals Do Soft Skills matter? A Study on Employability of Engineering Graduates in Bangladesh

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-44
Author(s):  
Rumana Afroze ◽  
Tamanna Parvin Eva ◽  
Atiqur Rahman Sarker
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
University Graduates ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Human Skills ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Objective: University graduates in Bangladesh are presently confronted with high job competition. Because of less job availability, engineering graduates are facing more challenges in getting job opportunities than business graduates. Moreover, engineering graduates are more proficient in technical skills than with their human skills. The most important barrier for engineering graduates’ employability at their initial stage of career is that they have less focus on acquisition of their soft skills. Therefore, this study is concentrating to analyse the current situation of the engineering graduates’ soft skills deficiency and to investigate the impact of having soft skills on employability. Methodology:The nature of the study is qualitative and data has been gathered through in-depth interview and Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Respondents of in-depth interview are experienced engineers and HR experts who are working in engineering based organizations especially at the power solution service providing companies in Bangladesh. FGD among final year undergraduate engineering students has also been conducted to validate the interview data. Thematic analysis is used to analyse the qualitative data. Findings:The impact of having soft skills in getting employment of new graduates at the entry level is identified in this paper. Value Added: Higher education can assist in developing employability through increasing employment prospect and also achieving individual learning goals. However, fresh engineering graduates have social skills gap and lack of practical knowledge which can be reduced through acquiring soft skills. Different techniques such as self-training, institutional training, joining language sessions, attending presentation skills development classes and social programs can assist graduates in the acquisition of soft skills. Recommendations: As the most important reason of engineers’ unemployment is the lacking of collaboration between industry and academic institutions, this study focuses to draw the attention of engineering students, educational institutes and policy makers to highlight the importance of developing soft skills for employability and career growth.

scholarly journals Intra and Inter-Individual Differences in Social Intelligence of Portuguese Students

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (61) ◽  
pp. 153-161
Author(s):  
Joana Carneiro Pinto ◽  
Liliana Faria ◽  
Neide Gaspar ◽  
Maria do Céu Taveira
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Career Guidance ◽  
Career Transition ◽  
Cognitive Test ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Psychological Conditions ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
The Social ◽  
8Th Grade

Social intelligence is a favorable condition for career decision-making and development. The social intelligence indices of Portuguese students in school years prior to a career transition are characterized and intra and interindividual differences are analyzed. Participants were 1095 students (552, 50.4% women) with a mean age of 14.78 years (SD = 1.86), in the 8th (542, 49.5%), 10th (295, 26.9%) and 11th (258, 23.6%) grades. The Cognitive Test of Social Intelligence (PCIS) was administered at two moments, six months apart. Results indicate that the 8th grade obtained higher average scores in Problem Solving, Motivation and Self-confidence (time 1), while the 10th grade obtained better results in Problem Solving, Motivation and Familiarity (time 2). Between the assessment moments, all school years register an increase in Problem Solving and Self-confidence in social situations. These results constitute favorable psychological conditions for the promotion of ethical questioning in career guidance interventions.

scholarly journals Internship and Private Fellowship: Why is it Difficult for Companies to Find Suitable Candidates?

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-187
Author(s):  
Bogdan Rusu
Keyword(s):  
Role Models ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Small Sample Size ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
A Company

AbstractThis exploratory study aims to identify the factors that prevent companies to find suitable candidates for private fellowships and internships: what students believe to be the causes, how would they explain these and which stakeholders should be involved to eliminate them. Data collection based on a sample of 18 engineering students that attended a company presentation inviting applications for private fellowship and student practice. Opinions were expressed in writing prior to structured interviews and group discussions. Limitations to this study are the relatively small sample size (n =18) and reliance on self-report measures. Information related causes were perceived by the students to lead their decisions, followed by lack of self-confidence of successful application for the grant. Respondents were classified in „Doers”, „Wishers “and „Lagers”. Universities must reinvent themselves in order to provide students with better knowledge and confidence on the job market, measured through a larger number of doers, which could become role models for wishers. Such process may generate a “critical mass” or tipping point in the transformation of a significant number of “wishers and lagers”. Whilst some of the students’ opinions are subjective, cooperation between universities and companies must continue to improve in order to enhance learning and better prepare students for their future careers.

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