Longitudinal Study Of Australian Engineering Graduates: Perceptions Of Working Time

Abstract

A longitudinal study of a single cohort of university engineering graduates is providing detailed information on the early career of Australian engineering graduates at a time of unprecedented demand for engineers. The graduates respond to web-based surveys every 2 or 3 months and a sub-sample provide more detailed information in telephone or face to face interviews. The participation rate was initially 60% and is still at above 40% after 12 months. The study aims to collect information on the work actually performed by the graduates, their perceptions on the amount of time they spend, how they learn the required skills and knowledge, training and professional development that they receive, and perceived gaps in their knowledge. We also aim to understand more about their career trajectories in the early years. Early surveys reveal the types of work performed by graduates in the first year of their career and some information about their early career learning. The paper provides an analysis of data on graduates' perceptions of the time they spend on different aspects of their work. This reveals that about 60% is spent on interactions with other people either face to face, on the telephone, or through written documents, showing the dominant role of social interactions in engineering practice.

A hard stop to the term “soft skills”

“…Literature frequently documents areas where undergraduate perceptions are misaligned with the activities or competencies of practicing engineers (e.g., Flening et al, 2021;Jang, 2016;Lutz & Paretti, 2021;Trevelyan, 2019), and no wonder-for decades, most industry reports have called for engineers with strong interpersonal and communication skills. However, new graduates entering the workforce are surprised by the distribution of daily activities pertaining to social skills, collaboration, and communication (e.g., Domal & Trevelyan, 2009;Trevelyan & Tilli, 2008). Few students, without guidance, understand how classroom professionalism, such as proofreading for typos or attention to tone in emails, translates to the real world.…”

Engineering practices observed in South Asia

“…Quantitative estimates of the proportion of time that professional engineers spend on sociotechnical interactions with other people, including face-to-face, telephone and teleconferencing, through text, and through human-readable data in information systems, vary between about 40% and 90% (e.g., Tenopir & King, 2004;Trevelyan & Tilli, 2008;Williams & Figueiredo, 2010). In other words, socio-technical interactions with other people dominate professional engineering practice.…”

“…In other words, socio-technical interactions with other people dominate professional engineering practice. Seeking human-readable information is another significant component, typically 5 to 10%, and might also be considered as a form of socio-technical interaction (Tenopir & King, 2004;Trevelyan & Tilli, 2008). Therefore, it would be surprising if such interactions were not influenced by the culture(s) of the host society and organisation.…”

“…In contrast, so-called 'technical' work, solitary cognitive performances that require interactions with abstract objects, usually mediated by information systems, form a relatively much smaller component of practice. Engineers typically spend 5 to 20% of their time on this activity, including design, calculations and modelling and most spend a negligible proportion of their time interacting manually with physical objects (Trevelyan & Tilli, 2008;Williams & Figueiredo, 2010).…”