Expanding Soft Skills Development Across Undergraduate Engineering Education

Abstract

Soft skills are an indispensable asset for engineers and industrial companies alike. Many studies have observed a growing gap between the soft skills of young people and those required by industrial companies and, more broadly, the business sector. At the same time, it is challenging to: (i) identify the soft skills currently expected of engineers in various industry segments; (ii) develop such skills intensively in education programmes; and (iii) provide learners with the means to develop their soft skills further. In the context of the current generation entering Engineering Education, our work has attempted to address these issues. Having grown up in a rapidly changing social and technological environment, young people have become increasingly dependent on virtual experiences rather than real-world experiences and personal interactions. We have created a novel Soft Skills Development Method (SSDM) and applied in various advanced engineering courses scheduled at the end of a mechatronics undergraduate programme. The SSDM focuses on personality development by simulating typical situations encountered in engineers’ everyday work. This paper reports on an exploratory case study, in which the SSDM was operationalised and tested. Individual interviews and focus group discussions were conducted, and thematic analysis was employed to evaluate and discuss the outcomes of applying the SSDM. It was concluded that limiting the application to a short period or a few specialised courses has a positive effect; however, it does not enable the desired improvement in soft skills properly. Therefore, we propose expanding the method to cover the entire undergraduate engineering training programme, including introductory courses such as Engineering Mathematics.