The use of Industrial Driven Live Projects to highlight the Importance of Global Engineering Competencies

The goal of a university educator is to prepare students for a successful career in today's competitive global job market. The increasingly interconnected world has changed working practices in engineering with multi-cultural teams across the globe working together to develop solutions for engineering problems. In order to master various intercultural and interdisciplinary collaborations engineers are not only required to possess technical expertise, but also professional skills including emotional intelligence, teamwork, critical thinking, cultural awareness and high ethical standards. The undergraduate Electrical Engineering provision at Northumbria University was historically focussed towards the delivery of technical modules, alongside a separate generic skills module, with little focus on the wider aspects of engineering. Staff, employer and student feedback , suggests the presence of a dedicated skills module does not provide an effective mechanism to highlight the relevance of professional skills required in the modern work place. The aim of this paper was to assess the effectiveness of a group based experiential learning module, in which 78 level 5 engineering students worked each week in small teams of 4 to solve industrial driven projects, with the objective to improve their awareness of professional skills and their consequent importance to a practicing engineer. Quantitative and qualitative data explored through the theoretical lens of self-determination theory highlight the benefits of this approach for preparing students more effectively for employment in todays market. Suggestions for implementation of group based experiential learning to highlight the importance of transferrable skills in other disciplines within other disciplines are also presented.