Engineering Professionals’ Expectations of Undergraduate Engineering Students
Publication: Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 12, Issue 2
Abstract
This paper presents the results of a study that sought to identify constructs that engineers in academia and industry use to describe attributes they consider important for undergraduate engineering students to possess. We explicitly targeted the attributes of leadership, recognizing and managing change, and synthesizing engineering, business, and social perspectives. Our findings indicate ways that engineering students can engage in technical and nontechnical activities that enhance their undergraduate engineering experiences. The final goal of this ongoing effort is to develop, validate, and implement a tool that examines undergraduate students’ embodiment of the three targeted attributes.
National initiatives have explored the attributes undergraduate engineering students need to be successful workers in industry once they graduate with their engineering degree (Lang et al. 1999). Among these desired attributes are the ability to communicate effectively; to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering; to function on multidisciplinary teams; to understand the impacts of engineering solutions in global and societal contexts; and to engage in lifelong learning [Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) 2001; McMasters 2004].
In 2005, Purdue University began a curricular initiative called the Purdue Engineer of 2020 (Meckl et al. 2009a). Mostly based on the National Academy of Engineering’s (2004) Engineer of 2020 report, this initiative includes eight abilities (e.g., decision making, teamwork), six knowledge areas (e.g., analytical skills, engineering fundamentals), and six qualities (e.g., strong work ethic, adaptability in a changing environment) that Purdue engineering students are encouraged to embrace for the 21st century.
This paper presents information from an empirical study about the attributes engineers in academia and industry identify as being important for undergraduate engineering students to possess. Of the abilities, knowledge areas, and qualities identified in a study sponsored by a Purdue University Engineer of 2020 seed grant (Meckl et al. 2009b), we examined the attributes of “leadership” (referred to as leadership throughout the paper), “recognize and manage change” (referred to as change throughout the paper) and “synthesize engineering, business, and social perspectives” (referred to as synthesis throughout the paper). We targeted these three attributes because of their alignment with a graduate-level Leadership, Policy, and Change course taught in the College of Engineering at Purdue University for students in the School of Engineering Education (Cox et al. 2009) and with national and global initiatives highlighting the importance of professional skill and leadership development among engineering students (Graham et al. 2009).
Background
Professional Skills Development in Engineering
Studies have explored engineering students’ development of professional skills. Table 1 summarizes the focus of some of these studies, the data collection methods used to explore research questions in these studies, and the major findings of each study. These findings identify a broad range of professional attributes needed by undergraduate engineering students, particularly in areas in which students are deficient given current curricular practices in engineering.Table 1. Past Studies Exploring Students’ Professional Skill Development
| Reference | Focus | Data collection | Major findings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Katz (1993) | Engineering students’ transition from college to entry-level positions | Interviews with students, professors, and professional engineers | Students have problems working on teams, communicating, and understanding workplace expectations. |
| Keenan (1993) | Views of students and graduates on the content of their courses as preparation for working as professional engineers in industry | Survey responses from 167 students in enhanced engineering curricula and from 353 students in traditional curricula | Engineering graduates who took more courses in nontechnical areas thought they were better prepared for industrial jobs. |
| Lang et al. (1999) | Perceived importance of American Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) attributes as identified by aerospace engineers | 172 survey items developed by the Industry–University–Government Roundtable for Enhancing Engineering Education that address Criterion 3 of ABET’s (2001) Engineering Criteria 2000 | Highest ranked items are located in Appendix B of Lang et al.’s (1999) paper. |
| Martin et al. (2005) | Alignment of outcomes of revised engineering programs with the needs of industry | Interviews with 16 chemical engineering undergraduate students at a Cape Town, South Africa, university about their current skills that prepare them for jobs in industry | Students identified their technical backgrounds, problem-solving skills, formal communication skills, and lifelong learning abilities as strengths. Weaknesses included working in multidisciplinary teams, leadership, practical preparation, and management skills. |
| McMasters and Matsch (1996) | Desired attributes of engineering graduates from an industrial perspective | Discussions with individuals in industry, academia (including students), and government | Many students have no practical engineering experience and do not know how to work in teams or in a large-scale system. Faculty have little to no experience working with industry. Industry needs to work with academia to make their needs clear. Apprenticeships are recommended for students. |
| Meier et al. (2000) | Competency gaps in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) community college and university graduates as perceived by industry and business leaders | Phase 1—Literature review and practitioner interviews | Some competencies that should be added to STEM programs include information sharing and cooperation with coworkers, teamwork, adaptation to changing work environments, and ethical decision making and behavior. |
| Phase 2—Surveys and focus groups with business professionals | |||
| Phase 3—Survey analysis | |||
| Sageev and Romanowski (2001) | Effectiveness of current engineering courses at a university and areas and methods for optimally expanding and improving the technical communications program | One-page survey given to engineering students enrolled at the university between 1994 and 1996 | Graduates need increased technical communication skills. Career advancement is positively related to engagement in technical communication activities. |
Focus on Targeted Attributes
Leadership, change, and synthesis have been explored separately and in a variety of contexts, particularly outside of engineering (Kotter 1990, 1996; Bolman and Deal 2003; Kouzes & Posner 1998; Northouse 2007; Schein 1992). Within the context of engineering, leadership has appeared in several studies, but change and synthesis as defined in this paper have not appeared in the literature exploring the desired attributes of undergraduate engineering students. In fact, change usually refers to curricular changes or reform (Merton et al. 2009), and synthesis usually refers to traditional definitions of engineering synthesis or to integration of engineering topics across multiple years of a curriculum (Bordogna et al. 1993). To gain an understanding of ways to synthesize engineering, business, and social perspectives, engineering students often work in multidisciplinary teams, conduct service learning projects, or engage in capstone design projects that include students or experts with experiences related to this paper’s definition of synthesis.
Although the importance of leadership is mentioned in the literature, few empirical studies have examined the leadership attributes of college students in engineering (Komives et al. 2007; Kouzes and Posner 2008). In engineering, leadership is promoted in the form of minors, formal undergraduate degree programs, formal graduate degree programs, and graduate courses (Graham et al. 2009). In addition, leadership has been identified as a skill that needs to be included in the curricula for future engineers (Cox et al. 2009) and that allows an individual to cope effectively with change in systems or organizations (Kotter 1990). Unfortunately, many engineering faculty members have not been trained formally to teach leadership and as a result, have not explored ways to include leadership principles in their courses.
The issue is also relevant to discussions in the engineering community of ways to develop future engineering leaders. About the same time that leadership development models for college students emerged, the engineering education community also started to focus on the leadership abilities of graduating engineers (American Society for Engineering Education 1994; Farr et al. 1997). One of the most important developments in this area was ABET’s (2001) Engineering Criteria 2000 (EC2000), which included criteria emphasizing the ability to work on teams, to communicate, to engage in lifelong learning, and to develop social and ethical responsibility as program outcomes. After publication of EC2000, leadership development gained momentum in engineering education. Leadership was pronounced one of the most important elements needed in graduating engineers. Since then, the emphasis on leadership in engineering has increased and has been included in STEM education policy reports by the National Research Council (2006), the National Academy of Engineering (2004, 2005), and Sheppard et al. (2007).
Recently, Graham and colleagues (2009) consulted more than 70 individuals and reviewed 40 programs internationally to identify good practices in leadership development in engineering fields. They found that many programs are less than 10 years old and that most of the programs were not focused specifically on engineering students. With the new developments in leadership development of engineering students at the undergraduate level, it becomes imperative to explore how these programs or courses are affecting the undergraduate students who enroll in them and who will be future engineering leaders.
One validated instrument designed to measure the leadership skills of college students is the student version of the Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI), developed by Kouzes and Posner (1998; see also Cox et al. 2010). The SLPI was inappropriate for use in this study because the students whom we surveyed were already in leadership positions and because academic and industrial employees’ definitions of desired leadership characteristics might be different from those used in developing the SLPI.
A standardized instrument is needed that is specifically designed to explore and measure undergraduate engineering students’ leadership skills and attributes and their ability to embrace change and to synthesize multiple perspectives. The literature lacks such a survey instrument or even operational definitions of leadership, change, and synthesis in engineering fields as observable and measurable attributes. In an effort to develop such an instrument for engineering students, we solicited operational definitions of leadership, change, and synthesis from engineering professionals working in industry and academia via one-on-one interviews. This paper presents those definitions as constructs that will be used to develop a survey instrument that measures attributes of leadership, change, and synthesis in undergraduate engineering students.
Methods
To identify the elements of leadership, change, and synthesis that were most important to experts in engineering, we collected qualitative data via semistructured interviews with 11 engineers from industry and 12 engineering faculty members.
Participants
Industry Experts
We recruited 11 industry experts from the industrial advisory boards of several departments in a college of engineering at a large Midwestern university. These experts were diverse in gender, rank, engineering discipline, years of industry experience, and leadership styles. Table 2 summarizes the characteristics of the industry participants.Table 2. Characteristics of Industry Experts Interviewed
| Gender | Industry experience (years) | Rank | Field | Self-reported leadership style |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 39 | Sales manager | Chemical engineering | One that is typically called the “servant leader.” |
| Male | 11 | Team leader | Chemical engineering | Not a micromanager; coach. |
| Male | 21 | Managing director | Chemical engineering | The leader can get through obstacles and find ways to get the jobs done. |
| Female | 22 | Asset manager | Chemistry and chemical engineering | My leadership style is extremely collaborative. It is a feminine leadership style. |
| Male | 26 | Director | Chemical engineering | Enable employees to have the tools that they have to have to effectively solve the problem. |
| Female | 27 | Chief engineer | Electrical engineering | I do not micromanage; pretty hands-off. |
| Male | 33 | Vice president of technology | Mechanical engineering | I tend to not be a detailed person. I tend to produce results because I think I am a good judge of talent, and I am very able to get people excited about what we are working on. |
| Male | 31 | Director | Chemical engineering | I have lived with being transparent. And the advantage of that is it communicates an awful lot to my superiors, to my peers, and to my subordinates. |
| Male | 15 | Manager of employee development | Mechanical engineering | Really, leadership is about enabling people. I just have to make sure that I know how to go about finding the right resources so I can remove barriers so you can do your function. |
| Male | 32 | Engineer | Interdisciplinary engineering | Here is all this work out here to do. And we can come together as a team and help these people and provide a service. |
| Female | 20 | Director | Civil engineering | Very direct. Very practical. Fluid and, I would say, innovative. |
Academic Experts
To recruit experts from academia, we sent recruitment e-mails to individuals with faculty appointments in a college of engineering at a large Midwestern university. We selected 12 engineering faculty participants on the basis of the diverse perspectives they contributed to the study and on their level of involvement in leadership development efforts on campus. Interviews were scheduled and conducted at a time and place of participants’ choosing. To achieve congruence among answers, we used the same interview protocol as that used to interview industry participants. Gender, rank, field of study, years of industry experience, and leadership styles of the participants from academia are displayed in Table 3.Table 3. Characteristics of Academia Experts Interviewed
| Gender | Industry experience (years) | Rank | Tenure start | Ph.D. field | Self-reported leadership style |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 10 | Professor | 1993 | Environmental engineering | Participatory (others’ participation is important; I try to set the vision; I do not have to receive credit for success). |
| Female | None | Associate professor | 1998 | Electrical engineering and computer science | Flexible, adaptive, and inconsistent. |
| Female | 1 (after B.S.) | Professor | 1997 | Civil engineering | A mixture of consensus building and decision making. |
| Male | None | Assistant professor | 2007 | Mechanical engineering | Hands-on and an enabler. |
| Male | 15 | Professor | 2002 | Chemical engineering | Hands-off; I try to recruit or hire the best people and to clearly define people’s roles in an organization or in a group. |
| Female | None | Professor | 1982 | Aeronautics and astronautics | Not dictatorial; I nudge everyone onto the same page. |
| Male | None | Professor | 1970 | Chemical engineering | Contextual; classic when I am clearly put in charge and more collegial at other times. |
| Female | 17 | Professor | 2006 | Veterinary medicine and surgery | Visionary; I pay less attention to details. I am strong headed; I have difficulty listening sometimes but am aware of this issue. |
| Male | 1 | Associate professor | 1987 | Mechanical engineering | I build consensus among different constituents. |
| Male | None | Assistant professor | 2007 | Mechanical engineering | I try not to control students. |
| Male | 12 | Associate professor | 2000 | Aeronautics and astronautics | I offer guidance but keep a focus on my own project. |
| Female | None | Professor | 1996 | Environmental science and engineering | I am very democratic; I value input from everyone in my unit. |
Data Collection
We conducted interviews with academic and industry experts using an interview protocol containing 17 semistructured questions about participants’ education, position, and experiences as leaders and about the Purdue Engineer of 2020 attributes of “leadership,” “recognize and manage change,” and “synthesizing engineering, business, and social perspectives.” We asked interviewees about (1) the importance of each attribute, (2) the ways each attribute might be useful in enhancing the professional life of an engineer, and (3) the operational definition of each attribute (using measurable verbs and descriptive adjectives). We also solicited real-life examples for each attribute to clarify the concept and to add to the operational definition of the attribute.
Before conducting interviews with faculty and industry experts, we sought to operationalize each of the three attributes within the context of engineering. We conducted literature reviews to identify such definitions, but the search was futile; we found no specific definitions of the three abilities within the context of engineering.
Data Analysis
We transferred electronic transcripts of the interviews to Atlas.ti (ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development, Berlin) for analysis. Phrases or ideas were the unit of coding, rather than individual words. The initial reading of two transcripts provided some common codes that we later transferred to a code book (MacQueen et al. 1998). We then reread the transcripts and updated the code book as new codes emerged. The code book included a definition for each code and descriptions of the nuances between codes. We later opened the code book to other engineering education researchers not directly affiliated with this study for discussion. Following discussions with them, we revised the definitions to provide clarification. Furthermore, for codes that might lead to confusion, we included descriptions of situations to help identify where the code should and should not be used.
Results
We gathered data on the constructs that emerged from the interviews with the experts from industry and academia in a table format. Tables 4, 5, and 6 present constructs for leadership, change, and synthesis, respectively.Table 4. Leadership Constructs Identified by Engineering Experts
Table 5. Change Constructs Identified by Engineering Experts
Table 6. Synthesis Constructs Identified by Engineering Experts
| Construct | Definition |
|---|---|
| Leadership | Characteristics of a leader or leadership, leadership examples, or desired characteristics of leaders or leadership |
| Leadership style | Self-reported leadership styles of the respondents, some informed by the literature and others not |
| Motivation | Ability to inspire people through good relationships, to share a vision, and to energize people to achieve that vision |
| Proactive | Ability to go above and beyond the call of duty, be a go-getter, do more than expected with an assignment, and initiate new tasks or projects without being told to do so |
| Empowerment | Ability to provide the necessary tools (tangible or intangible) for employees to perform their duties or jobs without a need for micromanagement; selection of the right people for the right job |
| Vision | Unique and sometimes unconventional ideas and methods to achieve a goal |
| People skills | Ability to work with and organize people from different backgrounds in work-related situations |
| Outcomes driven | Actionable process of getting things done or evaluating leadership by looking at the success or the failure of a project or the completion of tasks |
| Know the people | Ability to identify the talents and strengths of followers and to assign tasks based on their abilities |
| Communication | Ability to communicate or present ideas to other members of the group |
| Technical competence | Ability to use technical skills and respondents’ views of technical competence as part of leadership skills |
| Confident | Innate comfort in making decisions and being confident that they are the right decisions |
| See big picture | Ability to consider multiple inputs in directing or leading groups |
| Courage | Ability to take risks in making decisions, speaking out, or admitting to being wrong |
| Delegate | Ability to get the job done by assigning tasks to people who are competent in achieving them |
| Input driven | Ability to process data and base decisions on the data |
| Ability to listen | Ability to consider followers’ comments and be aware of their concerns |
| Responsibility | Ability to be accountable for one’s actions and tasks |
| Outside the box | Ability to think innovatively or differently from others |
| Trust | Ability to instill trust in followers by keeping promises and being and acting competent in technical matters and in relationships with other people |
| Willing to be wrong | Ability to take risks and learn from mistakes |
| Organization | Ability to organize and lead groups |
| Common goal | Commitment to teamwork and awareness that a task is something that the whole group, company, or organization should achieve together |
| Coach people | Explicit use of coaching or guiding |
| Drive | Curiosity and will to succeed |
| Reasoning and intelligence | Cognitive abilities |
| Fairness | Ability to instill trust in followers by being fair and treating them equitably |
| Ownership | Accountability for both accomplishments and failures and ability to assume responsibility even for tasks not assigned explicitly to the individual |
| Integrity | Trustworthiness and adherence to one’s word |
| Construct | Definition |
|---|---|
| Technological advancement | Use of new technologies in one’s professional life and adjustments based on technology |
| Process change | Familiarity with the way things are done and the process for getting these things done |
| People skills | Ability to work with people from different backgrounds, disciplines, or cultures and with different perspectives |
| Different areas of competency | Ability to work on different kinds of jobs, across disciplines, and with diverse technologies |
| Change management | Ability to deal with and manage the change process |
| Flexible | Ability to be adaptable to environmental changes and new ideas, processes, or innovations |
| Awareness | Ability to recognize change and act on that change |
| Organizational change | Ability to make adjustments or changes in a company’s organizational structure or work environments |
| Competition | Changes that are a result of a competitive industrial environment |
| Social change | Societal changes and their influence on engineers’ ability to perform their jobs |
| Economic change | Influence of the larger economic climate on work environments |
| Lifelong learning | Learning of new skills over the course of one’s career |
| Construct | Definition |
|---|---|
| Social responsibility | Responsibilities to society, the environment, and humankind |
| Holistic thinking | Ability to make decisions based on multiple points of view or considerations |
| Business perspectives | Consideration of business elements during product design |
| Customer orientation | Ability to listen to customers and consider their needs during product design and development |
| Politics | Political environment in relation to the engineering profession |
| Cost | Ability to consider the social or financial costs of products during the design and production process |
Discussion
Several of the leadership constructs that the engineering leaders identified did not differ greatly from typical definitions and characteristics of leadership that have been reported in the business, organizational, and other leadership literatures. The constructs of synthesis and change, however, were defined in new ways by these engineering professionals. Since we did not find any literature that explicitly discussed engineering students’ abilities to recognize and manage change and to synthesize engineering, business, and social perspectives, the constructs our sample identified within these two attributes add much to a larger conversation about the operationalization of these attributes among engineering students from the perspectives of engineering professionals.
Of the leadership constructs that the interviewees identified, two are closely affiliated with the field of engineering or with characteristics of engineers. First, technical competence was identified as being important for a leader. This construct implies that although professional skills are extremely important, leaders must be credible in their disciplines. Second, being data driven was identified as an important element of leadership. More specifically, engineering leaders are expected to use the data around them to make sound decisions.
Engineering professionals defined change in several different ways. Technological advancement emerged as one construct that explicitly relates to engineering, since engineers are expected to work in environments in which the technology is always changing. These professionals identified nonengineering change constructs related to professional characteristics (i.e., being flexible, understanding the role of competition in change, and having an awareness of the need to change), people (i.e., having people skills and engaging in lifelong learning), knowledge (i.e., demonstrating different areas of competency), process (i.e., knowing the process for getting things done and managing change), and different types of change (i.e., organizational, social, and economic).
For the synthesis constructs, although all elements relate to nonengineering concepts, these constructs are very much aligned with current engineering trends (e.g., sustainability and green engineering) and relate to several attributes that other authors have identified as important (Prados et al. 2005; Shuman et al. 2005). Synthesis constructs include an awareness of the political, business, and societal aspects of engineering. Synthesis also relates to the elements of globalization and an awareness of nonengineering aspects of professionalism. People elements are reflected in interviewees’ references to social responsibility and the need to orient oneself to customers and their needs. Interviewees also emphasized that engineering students must understand several nonengineering fields and ideas, think holistically, and consider both business (e.g., cost and budgetary issues) and political perspectives when making decisions.
Commonalities across the Three Attributes
We organized the findings by five themes: people, society, organization, competency, and money. Details about these themes and their placement in the context of the leadership, change, and synthesis constructs are presented in Table 7.Table 7. Themes Identified Related to Leadership, Change, and Synthesis
| Theme | Description |
|---|---|
| People | Respondents identified people skills as an important theme related to the leadership and change attribute. Respondents cited the need to know the people one leads and to coach them. They emphasized consideration of the needs of clients as part of the synthesis attribute. |
| Society | For the change and synthesis attributes, respondents made connections to society. They noted that societal changes affect how engineers do their jobs and that engineers must take into consideration the impacts of their work on society, the environment, and humankind. |
| Organization | Related to the change attribute, respondents noted that organizational change is inevitable and that as a result, engineers need to be aware of the environment in which they function. Regarding the leadership attribute, engineers need to know how to organize groups, be flexible, and show others the way to success. |
| Competency | As part of the leadership attribute, a successful engineering leader must be technically knowledgeable and possess different areas of competency. |
| Money | Respondents identified a need for engineers to be sensitive to economic changes within their environments and to consider financial costs as they synthesize engineering and nonengineering perspectives. |
Implications for Practice
The following lessons for improving the training of engineers can be learned from the interviews we conducted with the engineering professionals in this study:
•
Leadership, change, and synthesis constructs can be incorporated into the existing engineering curriculum without adding new courses to an already bloated plan of study.
•
Leadership, change, and synthesis constructs can be incorporated in assessments of student learning (e.g., framing formative or summative questions within the context of these leadership questions).
•
Engaging students in authentic individual in-class projects will allow them to explore the implications of their work for engineering and for other sectors (e.g., business and the larger society).
•
Students can engage in activities within their projects that relate to engagement with diverse stakeholders. Questions of interest might relate to how a technological innovation might affect clients, managers, or society.
Future Work
We developed pilot survey items from the constructs listed in Tables 4, 5, and 6 and sent this survey to four experts for review (i.e., one engineering graduate student who worked in industry, one industry representative who still works in industry, and two engineering faculty members). These experts rated each item using a 4-point Likert scale, and their responses led to the selection of items (a procedure known as the Q-sort) that were included in a survey completed by 800 engineering undergraduate students at a large midwestern university. We will assess the reliability and validity of these survey items using exploratory factor analysis. The final goal of the project is to develop, validate, and implement a tool that examines undergraduate students’ embodiment of the three targeted attributes of leadership, change, and synthesis and to develop seminars and workshops aligned with these attributes.
Conclusion
In this study, we looked at the views of faculty members and industry experts on leadership, change, and synthesis. Rather than focus on personal best stories of students (Kouzes and Posner 1998), we relied on engineering experts in industry and academia to define constructs in engineering leadership, ability to manage change, and ability to synthesize business and social perspectives and to relate them to undergraduate engineering education. The results revealed some differences in the views of the industry and academic experts. However, because academic and industrial tracks for engineering students are not separate, all of the different views should be considered in improving the education of undergraduate students as engineers. Furthermore, with this study, we hope to create a new area of discussion related to development of an instrument that will aid in the assessment of leadership, change, and synthesis abilities of undergraduate engineering students. In this way, employers (in either industry or academia) of engineers may empirically measure such attributes.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by an Engineer of 2020 seed grant from the Purdue University College of Engineering.
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Biographies
Monica F. Cox is associate professor, School of Engineering Education, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Osman Cekic is assistant professor, School of Education, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Canakkale, Turkey.
Benjamin Ahn is doctoral student, School of Engineering Education, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
Jiabin Zhu is doctoral student, School of Engineering Education, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 12 • Issue 2 • April 2012
Pages: 60 - 70
Copyright
© 2012. American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 3, 2011
Accepted: Jan 3, 2012
Published online: Mar 15, 2012
Published in print: Apr 1, 2012
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