INTERNATIONAL EXPECTATIONS OF ENGINEERING GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES

As societal and organizational dynamics change, the skills expected from graduating engineers also change. Regulating bodies worldwide mandate and update these expectations with engineering graduate attributes or competency guidelines. These regulations direct engineering education institutions towards the expected outcomes of the engineering curriculum. The goal of this study is to determine internationally-common skill requirements of graduating engineers. Graduate attribute guidelines from 17 worldwide engineering regulating bodies were collected. The data was analyzed using content analysis in order to reduce the data down into main themes. Five overall themes of engineering graduate attributes were identified: knowledge base, professionalism, problem solving, diverse work setting, and design. These five themes were split into 21 categories, and of these categories, five were essential as they were included in all of the countries analyzed. Comparing the categories with the CDIO Syllabus showed a high level of correlation indicating that international accreditation bodies are using similar attributes as those outlined within the CDIO Syllabus. The areas with no correlation provide the basis for improvement within both the graduate attributes and the CDIO Syllabus.

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