Adopting a Strategy for Enhancing Generic Skills in Engineering Education

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evangelia Krassadaki ◽  
Kleanthi Lakiotaki ◽  
Nikolaos F. Matsatsinis
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Skills Development ◽  
Generic Skills ◽  
Team Working ◽  
High Level ◽  
The University ◽  
Academic Year

It is remarkable how often academic staff discover students' weaknesses in expressing their thoughts in written and oral contexts, and in team working. To examine these weaknesses, a study was conducted in 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 of students taking an engineering course. Students self-reported an initial high level of weakness in both communication skills (writing and speaking), while expressing higher levels of confidence in their team working skills. This suggested that there was significant potential for improvement in both forms of communication skills and a lower potential for the improvement of team-working skills. On that basis the Technical University of Crete organized short training workshops based on experiential learning methods, during the academic year 2012–13. Other factors taken into account were the lack of awareness of such skills in traditionally-organized Greek universities; the inability to redesign all courses, currently dependent on a content-based curriculum, on a competency basis; and findings in the international literature, which highlight specific generic skills of engineering students as essential to their studies and future career prospects. The aim was to enhance the three skills of writing, speaking and team working. Participation was voluntary and open to students from all schools in the university. This paper assesses this initiative and analyses the contribution of the workshops to skills development.

scholarly journals Compartmental Learning versus Joint Learning in Engineering Education

Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 662
Author(s):  
María Jesús Santos ◽  
Alejandro Medina ◽  
José Miguel Mateos Roco ◽  
Araceli Queiruga-Dios
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Chemical Engineering ◽  
Linear Equations ◽  
Mathematical Software ◽  
Mathematical Concepts ◽  
Joint Learning ◽  
The University ◽  
Academic Year ◽  
Non Linear Equations ◽  
Mathematics And Physics

Sophomore students from the Chemical Engineering undergraduate Degree at the University of Salamanca are involved in a Mathematics course during the third semester and in an Engineering Thermodynamics course during the fourth one. When they participate in the latter they are already familiar with mathematical software and mathematical concepts about numerical methods, including non-linear equations, interpolation or differential equations. We have focused this study on the way engineering students learn Mathematics and Engineering Thermodynamics. As students use to learn each matter separately and do not associate Mathematics and Physics, they separate each matter into different and independent compartments. We have proposed an experience to increase the interrelationship between different subjects, to promote transversal skills, and to make the subjects closer to real work. The satisfactory results of the experience are exposed in this work. Moreover, we have analyzed the results obtained in both courses during the academic year 2018–2019. We found that there is a relation between both courses and student’s final marks do not depend on the course.

scholarly journals The Sound of Silence?

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 392-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Hassall ◽  
J. Joyce ◽  
M.D. Bramhall ◽  
I.M. Robinson ◽  
J.L. Arquero
Keyword(s):  
Communication Skills ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Communication Apprehension ◽  
Vocational Choice ◽  
Communication Performance ◽  
Vocational Skills ◽  
Communication Development ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
High Level

Employers often consider graduates to be unprepared for employment and lacking in vocational skills. A common demand from them is that the curriculum should include ‘communication skills’, as specific skills in their own right and also because of the central role that such skills can play in developing other desirable attributes. Current thinking in communication has indicated a split between communication apprehension and communication development. There are indications that techniques designed to develop communication skills will not resolve communication apprehension and that, if an individual has a high level of communication apprehension, these techniques will not result in improved communication performance. This paper compares and contrasts the levels and profiles of communication apprehension exhibited by accounting and engineering students. The implications of the findings are then discussed and the need for further research in the area of vocational choice is identified.

scholarly journals The Academic Freedom among the Students at the Hashemite University: الحرية الأكاديمية لدى طلبة الجامعة الهاشمية

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (30) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abd AlKhaleq Muhammad Al-Zyoud
Keyword(s):  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Academic Level ◽  
Study Results ◽  
High Level ◽  
The University ◽  
Hashemite University ◽  
Senior Students ◽  
Academic Year

This study aimed at exploring the level of academic freedom at the Hashemite University in Jordan from the perspective of the undergraduate students, and whether there are impacts of the students’ gender, academic level, or specialization. The sample consisted of (376) undergraduate students (111 male, 265 female), who are registered at the university for the first semester of the academic year 2019/2020, from all faculties of the Hashemite University. The results showed that 25.5% of participants perceived a high level of academic freedom, 57.2% of participants perceived a moderate level, and 17.3% of them perceived a low level. Significant differences were found due to academic level; academic freedom perceived level among senior students was higher than all other years (freshmen, sophomores and juniors), but no significant differences were found due to students’ gender, or specialization. In light of the study results, the researcher recommends a number of recommendations such as: raising the awareness about the academic freedom among the students, faculty members, and the staff the Jordanian universities, conducting survey studies that measure the level of academic freedom among the students at various Jordanian universities, Supporting the academic freedom of the students at the institutions of higher education through deliberate and planned initiatives.

Technical Writing Required of Graduate Engineering Students

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory K. West ◽  
Patricia Byrd
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Analysis Of Variance ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Rank Order ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
University Of Florida ◽  
Friedman Analysis ◽  
The University ◽  
Academic Year

Technical writing required of employees in business and industry has been investigated, but the writing demands on graduate students have not been systematically surveyed. To find out what kinds of writing are required of graduate engineering students, twenty-five engineering faculty members from the Engineering College at the University of Florida listed the kinds of writing assigned to graduate classes during the academic year 1979–80. Since the faculty members were asked to rank-order the writing kinds from most frequent to least frequent, the Friedman analysis of variance and the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test were used to test for differences in the rank ordering. The tests showed that faculty assigned examinations, quantitative problems, and reports most frequently, that they assigned homework and papers (term and publication) less frequently, and that they assigned progress reports and proposals least frequently.

scholarly journals Proposing an Electronic System for Following-up and Managing the Field Training: Palestine Ahliya University as a Case: نظام إلكتروني مقترح لمتابعة وإدارة التدريب الميداني في جامعة فلسطين الأهلية: دراسة حالة

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sameh Taqatqa, Ahmad Hasasneh, Jamil Itmazi
Keyword(s):  
Academic Staff ◽  
Electronic System ◽  
Training System ◽  
Field Training ◽  
Core Courses ◽  
Training Unit ◽  
Training Institutions ◽  
The University ◽  
Academic Year

Obviously, digital technology offers simplified solutions to solve or mitigate problems in general. In the academic sector in particular, the field training is one of the core courses that students must enroll during the third and fourth academic year, where the students have manually to select a relevant organization or institution based on their specialization. The academic staff and hosting institutions do not supervise the trainees as required due to lack of communication between them, wrong selection of the hosting institutions by students in some cases, limited following-up the trainees, thus leading to uncertainty in the number of training hours and reports required by students. These problems can be addressed or mitigated by proposing an electronic training system improving the communication between supervisors of field training, host institutions, and trainees and thus solving most of the mentioned problems. Based on this e-training system, the training unit at the university could therefore follow-up the trainees and thus improve the communication and cooperation with the training institutions. It will also definitely contribute in improving the training task itself for the students. In this proposed paper, the importance of the proposed system was presented. Other related systems were mentioned and used as references in the analysis stage. In the analytical stage, data was collected using 3 different questionnaires developed for students, supervising staff, and for the training institutions. Consequently, obstacles and problems faced these entities were extracted and mentioned. Finally, a preliminary design was proposed in this paper to develop and implement an electronic training system at Palestine Ahliya University.

scholarly journals Canadian University Social Software Guidelines and Academic Freedom: An Alarming Labour Trend

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 45-56
Author(s):  
Taryn Lough ◽  
Toni Samek
Keyword(s):  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Social Software ◽  
Canadian Universities ◽  
Administrative Capacity ◽  
Personal Use ◽  
The Right ◽  
The University ◽  
And Control ◽  
Academic Year

An analysis of first-stage social software guidelines of nine Canadian universities conducted in the 2012-13 academic year with the aim to reveal limits to academic freedom. Carleton University’s guidelines serve as the anchor case, while those of eight other institutions are included to signify a national trend. Implications for this work are central to academic labour. In as much as academic staff have custody and control of all records they create, except records created in and for administrative capacity, these guidelines are interpreted to be alarming. Across the guidelines, framing of social media use by academic staff (even for personal use) as representative of the university assumes academic staff should have an undying loyalty to their institution. The guidelines are read as obvious attempts to control rather than merely guide, and speak to the nature of institutional overreach in the related names of reputation (brand), responsibility (authoritarianism), safety (paternalistically understood and enforced), and the free marketplace of [the right] ideas.

scholarly journals Communication Skills among Undergraduate Students at Al-Quds University

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Suheir Suliman Sabbah ◽  
Fadwa Hallabieh ◽  
Ola Hussein
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Listening Skill ◽  
Medium Level ◽  
Speaking Skill ◽  
High Level ◽  
Academic Year

This study aimed to investigate the communication skills among undergraduate students at Al-Quds University. The researcher obtained responses from (193) undergraduate students enrolled in B.A. program. The researcher used the questionnaire of Hamidat (2007) which composed of (32) statements divided into four areas: listening skill, speaking skill, the skill of understanding others, and controlling emotions skill. The results revealed that university students have achieved a high level of communication skills in three dimensions (listening, speaking, and understanding others). It also showed a medium level in controlling emotions. Moreover, the results showed that there were no significant differences in the level of communication skills according to gender, faculty, or academic year.

Academic Leadership

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonu Narayana Swami ◽  
Tobedza Gobona ◽  
Joe Joseph Tsimako
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Mission Statement ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Academic Leadership ◽  
Research Quality ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Academic Leaders ◽  
University Of Botswana ◽  
The University

Academic Leadership involves managing people in higher education and also elsewhere. Academic leaders could emerge due to their committed and continued pursuit in research; quality assurance; strategies adopted; marketing abilities; contributing education to wider community; developing new programmes and timely reviewing them. The research is aimed at reviewing the literature that exists in this field and to find out the degree or state of academic leadership that exists within the University of Botswana (UB) and how far UB academic leadership has impacted on its vision and mission statement. Primary data was collected through administering a questionnaire within UB on selected five strata of graduate students, academic staff, lower, middle and top management. Respondents were happy with the Academic Leadership in the areas of motivation, professionalism, sense of belonging, building consensus and communication skills.

scholarly journals Developing library e-learning courses - how to make a fruitful collaboration?

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Beth Våga ◽  
Mona Henriksen ◽  
Inger Gåsemyr
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Foreign Students ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Academic Culture ◽  
Student Groups ◽  
Subject Specific ◽  
E Learning ◽  
The University

The University Library of Stavanger has made three interactive library courses. Two of the courses are in Norwegian, Vitenskapelige artikler i sykepleiefaget (Scientific articles in nursing), and Kildebruk og litteratursøk (Information literacy: How to search and cite) and one in English, Writing thesis, using sources. The purpose has been to help students developing skills in information literacy, to fulfill the demands required by the Norwegian ministry of education and research. The courses are available at the library's webpage. Their purpose is to be a supplement to ordinary library courses. The courses consist of text, films, interactive tasks and voiceover. We have made subject-specific courses, which cover different faculties at the University. We believe that the students at a university seek to identify themselves with the profession they aim to become a part of through their studies, and hopefully they develop an attachment to the library.   The course Writing thesis, using sources is primarily aiming towards engineering students, but it will also be useful for other student groups. The university has many foreign students in different engineering disciplines and levels. They sometimes have a bachelor's degree from a country with an academic culture that is different from ours. The course is written in a clear and concise language. The students can listen to the text, or read it. The cooperation between the library and the academic staff has varied during the development of the courses. We had close contact with two members of the Department of Health Studies during the whole process of the first course, Vitenskapelige artikler i sykepleiefaget (Scientific articles in nursing).They gave us advice about content and definitions. There has been less cooperation with academic staff during the two other courses. Cooperation with NettOp (The University's department for web-based education) has been outstanding. NettOp has guided us on subjects like software, layout, technical support, interactive objects and pedagogical advice, like how to write for students. We also invited students to give feedback on the courses. The process has been informative, and we have developed new skills. At the same time there have been challenges, such as software issues and lack of collaboration with academic staff. Maintaining the courses is very time consuming. We would like to meet other colleagues in higher education interested in e-learning courses and exchange experiences. Discussions may be about matters such as: Do we really need interactive courses? Should the courses be subject-specific or general in content? How can we include academic staff in a better way? Could students do the job? Could several universities cooperate to make interactive courses? Could we borrow content from each other? How do we know whether the courses are used or not? What about the learning process and outcome for the students? How do we best promote the courses? Experiences with different software and use of devices. Discussions should be conducted in groups consisting of max 8 participants. The results from the discussions could for example be published on UBIS' blog.  

scholarly journals Computer-supported experiential learning (Phase One - staff development)

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Staley ◽  
Diana Eastcott
Keyword(s):  
Staff Development ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Computer Networks ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Appropriate Use ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Network Technologies ◽  
The University

In recent years the University of Central England in Birmingham has made considerable investments in developing computer networks. Developments have been technology-led, and the major use of the network has been for administration. The Computer-Supported Experiential Learning Project has been designed to refocus upon the curriculum, and to encourage academic staff to use the network technologies for teaching and learning. The broad aim of the project is to investigate and systematically evaluate the appropriate use of technology to improve the quality of learning.DOI:10.1080/0968776990070107

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document