Exploring Perceptions of Social and Generic Competencies among Engineering Students, Professors, and Practitioners

Abstract

There is a growing concern in academia and industry regarding the key competencies of engineers. Present-day challenges and complexities demand that engineers possess not only specialized technological knowledge but also certain transversal competencies and knowledge of various areas in the social sciences and humanities. In this study, we examined the perceptions that engineering academia and industry have toward some of these nontechnological key competencies. To achieve this, we administered a questionnaire to civil engineering undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, professors, and professionals (n=583). Additionally, we explored the perceived need for different sets of social knowledge areas and generic skills. The reliability and validity of the results were checked using Cronbach’s alpha and item response theory measures, respectively. Subsequently, we used chi-square tests of independence to determine the significance of the associations between responses and several demographic variables like gender, stakeholder group, educational background, and personal interests. Furthermore, factor analysis was used to identify underlying latent variables of perceptions. The findings revealed a significant gap between academia and industry perceptions, a gap that was more evident for social knowledge than for generic skills. Notably, no relevant mismatches were observed from a gender perspective. The study accentuated the imperative of fortifying the interconnections between academia and industry and the need for more research on the integration of social knowledge domains into engineering education.