Abstract

HERNANDEZ HERRERA, Claudia Alejandra  and  NERI TORRES, Juan Carlos. Soft Skills in Engineering Students from Three Public Higher Education Institutions. RIDE. Rev. Iberoam. Investig. Desarro. Educ [online]. 2020, vol.10, n.20, e047.  Epub Nov 18, 2020. ISSN 2007-7467.  https://doi.org/10.23913/ride.v10i20.678.

The objective of this paper was to analyze the perception that engineering students have regarding the acquisition of soft skills achieved in the course of their studies. The data was obtained through of the construction of a questionnaire with a Likert-type scale; factor analysis, Kruskal-Wallis statistical tests and generalized linear models were applied. It is a cross-sectional study; the sample was 3560 young people of three public universities: two of them located in Mexico City, and one in the Euzkadi Country, Spain. It was found that the students of the Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, in the Basque Country, obtained higher scores in relation to soft skills; Mexican universities were behind. In addition, it was found that in both the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) and the Tecnológico Nacional de México (TecNM) the knowledge related to soft skills must be strengthened in computer engineering and in information and communication technologies studies. Finally, young people at IPN who are also working gave higher scores to soft skills. It is concluded that educational institutions have to work in the implementation of workshops that reinforce soft skills and maintain closeness with the business sector to allow for boosting stays, since these contribute to strengthening the interpersonal skills of students.

Keywords : engineering careers; soft skills; skills of an engineer; universities.

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