scholarly journals INFORMATION LITERACY AND THE ART OF DOING RESEARCH WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF AN ENGINEERING TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION CLASS

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Parker ◽  
Norma Godavari
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Technical Communication ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
Technical Information ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Professional Discourse ◽  
The Subject

In this paper, we present some of the pedagogical outcomes of a study we undertook to determine whether research skills are valuable “soft skills” to have within an Engineering context, or whether they are merely “short-term competencies” as some would contend. We argue that engineering students (as future professionals) must develop two important – and confluent – skills: finding valid, complex technical information and translating it into a useful communication. As professionals, engineers must be able to find the information they need, assess it and apply it to their designs and to their communications. As students, they need to become acquainted with their professional discourse community, so we suggest that assigning a research paper in a field where applications and design exigencies are important is a worthwhile thing to do since this kind of research activity underpins students’ future roles as professional engineers and promotes their lifelong learning. In the technical communication class offered in our school of Engineering, students learn how to engage in the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information, a process that enhances their comprehension of the subject, develops their critical thinking and introduces them to their discourse community.

Hypermedia Programs for Mechanical Engineering

1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy K. Hight ◽  
Lee E. Hornberger ◽  
Elizabeth Lawrence ◽  
Matthew W. Gawlowski
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Technical Information ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Machine Design ◽  
Standard Type ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Information Transmittal ◽  
Accessible Form

Abstract Engineers need to absorb and learn large amounts of new technical information. Effective methods of receiving this information are needed. Hypermedia stacks are one emerging avenue for information transmittal. This paper discusses two programs that have been created to address two distinct requirements for information transmittal — description of new technology in an easily accessible form, and guiding novices in developing skills and gaining insights in solving a particular type of problem. The first program was developed using a HyperCard stack and a Macintosh computer and describes current techniques available for rapid prototyping. Professional engineers and engineering students are largely unaware of these technologies because information on the subject is new. The second program is being developed using ToolBook under Windows and deals with the problem of sizing an idler shaft under given loads and operating conditions. This is a standard type of problem that might be given in a junior level machine design course. It draws on knowledge from statics and strength of materials and so acts as a review of fundamentals as well as a test of deeper understanding. This second program is at an earlier stage of development.

scholarly journals Building Students’ Personality for Employment Readiness through Soft-skills Training

2022 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-45
Author(s):  
Saranya C Saranya C ◽  
Rajakumar Guduru
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Personality Types ◽  
Carl Jung ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Professional Careers ◽  
Individual Personality ◽  
Employment Readiness ◽  
Support Students

A winning personality is the physical attribute of a person and is considered as his or her success in personal, academic, and professional careers. However, in the ESL context, most engineering students seem to be unaware of the need for and importance of an appealing personality for achieving success in both personal and professional careers. Although students are given a short-term training in soft-skills by their respective college or institute, engineering students seem to lack aspects of a pleasing personality which helps them in job placements and later in the work environment. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to understand and build engineering students’ personality traits such as enthusiasm, dependability, and teamwork for a successful career. For this purpose, to understand the students’ personality types, 25 engineering students were administered a pre-test based on Carl Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers’ typological approach to personality. Students were helped in building personality through the soft-skills training. The data was analyzed and interpreted both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results indicated that having a pleasing personality and exhibiting soft-skills enables in building students’ individual personality for employment readiness. Implications were offered to students, placement trainers, and teachers. It is concluded that having a charming personality will support students in landing their desired jobs.

Information literacy training effectiveness on Cambodia's province-based undergraduates

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-280
Author(s):  
Cheyvuth Seng ◽  
May Kristine Jonson Jonson Carlon ◽  
Jeffrey Scott Cross
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Literacy Training ◽  
Before And After

PurposeThis study is aimed at determining the effect of a short-term information literacy training activity on the self-efficacy of undergraduate students at province-based universities in Cambodia.Design/methodology/approachA three-week training intervention was administered to 461 undergraduate students at three province-based public universities in Cambodia. The participants answered an information literacy self-efficacy questionnaire before and after the intervention.FindingsThe students' level of information literacy self-efficacy has a low mean score of 2.23 on a five-point scale before the training. After the training, the score dramatically increased to 3.64 and was statistically significant (p-value < 0.001). This indicates that short-term information literacy self-efficacy training is an effective means to promote information literacy among students.Research limitations/implicationsThis research scope was limited to examine the effect of a short-term intervention on a particular population. Further improvements include analyzing the training effects over the long term, soliciting qualitative feedback from respondents, and gathering previous relevant training data.Practical implicationsThere is a need for a carefully designed curriculum to be implemented that focuses on introducing information and communication technology (ICT) while considering its potential application to research activity. To be able to make meaningful curriculum changes, there must be a systematic way of identifying the ICT needs that are most urgent among undergraduate students in province-based Cambodian universities.Originality/valueThis research focuses on implementing ICT training and measuring its effectiveness on Cambodian undergraduate students in province-based universities, a growing population that has immense potential in influencing the country's growth but whose information literacy self-efficacy remains largely understudied until now.

scholarly journals ATTITUDES OF ENGINEERING STUDENTS TOWARDS LEARNING COMMUNICATION SKILLS: A STUDY

2021 ◽  
pp. 53-58
Author(s):  
Dipakkumar Bhatt
Keyword(s):  
Communication Skills ◽  
Technical Communication ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
P Value ◽  
Engineering Student ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
The Subject

Communication Skills play a very significant role in the life an engineering graduate. It is important for an engineering student to have command on communication skills, keeping in mind the present job scenario demands of the recruiters. The aim of the present study is to find out the attitude of the engineering students towards learning the subject of communication skills in their 2nd year of engineering named Effective Technical Communication. A comparative study was conducted between English medium students’ and vernacular medium-Gujarati medium students’ approach towards learning communication skills subject. Likert Scale questionnaire having 10 statements was designed and it was surveyed from two universities of the State teaching B.E./B.Tech. programs. A total number of 26 respondents’ responses were analyzed using one-tailed t-test and the p-value was utilized to justify the alternative hypothesis. It has been noticed that the students keep positive approach towards learning the subject, though few students hold negative attitude for learning the subject. It seems necessary to mention that the fact is realized by the students that strengthening the communication skills can have positive impact on their future prospects.

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.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Hadfield
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Travel Writing ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Empirical Observation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Europe

There were few subjects that animated people in early modern Europe more than lying. The subject is endlessly represented and discussed in literature; treatises on rhetoric and courtiership; theology, philosophy, and jurisprudence; travel writing; pamphlets and news books; science and empirical observation; popular culture, especially books about strange, unexplained phenomena; and, of course, legal discourse. For many, lying could be controlled and limited even if not eradicated; for others, lying was a necessary element of a casuistical tradition, liars balancing complicated issues and short-term pragmatic considerations in the expectation of solving more problems than they caused through their deceit....

scholarly journals Calculators as Facilitators of Understanding Computational and Mathematical Contexts

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-183
Author(s):  
Jan Guncaga ◽  
Lilla Korenova ◽  
Jozef Hvorecky
Keyword(s):  
Soft Skills ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Learning To Learn ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractLearning is a complex phenomenon. Contemporary theories of education underline active participation of learners in their learning processes. One of the key arguments supporting this approach is the learner’s simultaneous and unconscious development of their ability of “learning to learn”. This ability belongs to the soft skills highly valued by employers today.For Mathematics Education, it means that teachers have to go beyond making calculations and memorizing formulas. We have to teach the subject in its social context. When the students start understanding the relationship between real-life problems and the role of numbers and formulas for their solutions, their learning becomes a part of their tacit knowledge. Below we explain the theoretical background of our approach and provide examples of such activities.

Intensive research activity alters short-term seedling dynamics in a tropical forest

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liza S. Comita ◽  
Gregory R. Goldsmith ◽  
Stephen P. Hubbell
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Intensive Research ◽  
Seedling Dynamics

The Lived Experience of Financialization at the UK Financial Fringe

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
LINDSEY APPLEYARD ◽  
CARL PACKMAN ◽  
JORDON LAZELL ◽  
HUSSAN ASLAM
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Credit Market ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Dramatic Decline ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The financialization of everyday life has received considerable attention since the 2008 global financial crisis. Financialization is thought to have created active financial subjects through the ability to participate in mainstream financial services. While the lived experience of these mainstream financial subjects has been the subject of close scrutiny, the experiences of financial subjects at the financial fringe have been rarely considered. In the UK, for example, the introduction of High-Cost, Short-Term Credit [HCSTC] or payday loan regulation was designed to protect vulnerable people from accessing unaffordable credit. Exploring the impact of HCSTC regulation is important due to the dramatic decline of the high-cost credit market which helped meet essential needs in an era of austerity. As such, the paper examines the impact of the HCSTC regulation on sixty-four financially marginalized individuals in the UK that are unable to access payday loans. First, we identify the range of socioeconomic strategies that individuals employ to manage their finances to create a typology of financial subjectivity at the financial fringe. Second, we demonstrate how the temporal and precarious nature of financial inclusion at the financial fringe adds nuance to existing debates of the everyday lived experience of financialization.

The problem of teaching communicative tactics in English-language professional discourse

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Svetlana S. Andreeva
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Civil Engineering ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
Professional Discourse ◽  
Professional Field ◽  
The Will

The work discusses the problem of teaching students of civil engineering departments English-language civil engineering discourse, in particular, communicative tactics of this type of discourse. We substantiate the need to form students’ skills in using the communicative tactics applied in civil engineering discourse in professional communication. We give an overview of com-municative tactics of written discourse used by the authors of English-language documentation in civil engineering professional field. The purpose of the study is to determine the level of students’ skills in using communicative tactics in a foreign language professional written speech. Theoretical and practical research showed that in a modern technical university, insufficient attention is paid to teaching students this component of professional discourse. At the same time, the level of students’ skills to use communicative tactics in professional communication is quite low, which led us to the conclusion that it is of paramount importance to include this component in the pro-gram of teaching a foreign language in a professional field. The results of the will serve as the ba-sis for the development of a methodic model of teaching civil engineering students the communic-ative tactics of professional civil engineering discourse.

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