文章基本信息

标题：THE SELF-REPORTED CONFIDENCE AND PROFICIENCY LEVELS OF UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING STUDENTS IN AN ENGINEERING TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION COURSE
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作者：Anne Parker ; Kathryn Marcynuk
期刊名称：Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association
出版年度：2015
语种：English
出版社：The Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA)
摘要：We have conducted surveys at the beginning and the end of semesters in an Engineering Technical Communication course, surveys that are designed to determine how confident our students feel about “Communication Skills” and personal skills development, or “Lifelong Learning” (defined here as the ability to devise ways to develop broader knowledge and to identify personal strengths and weaknesses). Our objective is to see whether students’ confidence levels increase and then compare these levels with where students believe they should be once they graduate. In this paper, we report on the data obtained from these two surveys conducted from Winter 2013 until Winter 2015. Normally, one section of the class completed the surveys, although two sections (A01 and A02) completed the surveys in both the Winter 2013 semester and in the Winter 2015 semester, for a total of 9 classes that participated.. So far, we have found that students do indeed feel more confident in all the surveyed areas at the end of the semester. Yet, regardless of their growing confidence, many students also feel they have not yet achieved the level of proficiency expected of them once they graduate. For example, for “personal skills” (such as applying critical inquiry and analysis to engineering problems and doing the communications that support the engineering work), 5 represents an ability to lead or innovate in a particular area, and 3 indicates an ability to understand and explain. In our surveys the aggregate was 3.4 for the initial survey (n=450 students) and 3.5 for the end-of-term survey (n=378). Most telling, however, is the level students feel they must achieve by the time they graduate (4.5). In other words, by acknowledging that lifelong learning is an important attribute, one that they will have to continue to develop if they are ever to achieve the level expected of them, students demonstrate a remarkable level of selfawareness.