Engineering Leadership Development: Contribution of Professional Skills to Engineering Undergraduate Students’ Leadership Self-efficacy

Abstract

<p style="text-align: justify;">Corresponding to industry trends and changes in engineering education accreditation criteria, non-technical professional skills training is now seen as central to baccalaureate engineering education. Beyond simply developing good managers in the engineering fields, engineering educators have adopted a goal to prepare engineering students to be leaders who can provide vision to their organizations with strong ethical standards. This study investigated engineering undergraduate students’ leadership efficacy development associated with such professional skills as self-awareness, global competence, ethical awareness, creativity, and teamwork skills. Responding to an online survey, 247 engineering undergraduates who were enrolled in an engineering leadership course participated in this study. Results of this study indicated that there are positive associations among the five professional skills (e.g., self-awareness, ethical awareness, global competency, creativity, and teamwork skills), and engineering leadership self-efficacy for engineering undergraduate students. The five professional skills (self-awareness, ethical awareness, global competency, creativity, and teamwork skills) predicted 54% of the overall variance of engineering leadership self-efficacy.</p>

What Engineering Leaders Lead: The Career Outcomes of an Engineering Leadership Program’s Alumni Community

“…Early in its history, GEL began periodically conducting pre-/post-program assessments rooted in measurement of students' self-efficacy beliefs [15] pertinent to learning objectives underlying the Capabilities of Effective Engineering Leaders (see, e.g., [16] for a detailed description of another EL program's similar assessment approach). Changes in same-student self-efficacy beliefs between the beginning and end of the program were assessed.…”