Faculty Members’ Perceptions of Engineering Students’ Preparedness for Leadership Competencies

Hwangbo Bae; Madeline Polmear; Denise Rutledge Simmons

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Conference: 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual Conference
Publication Date: July 26, 2021
Start Date: July 26, 2021
End Date: July 19, 2022
Conference Session: Career Advancement Through Engineering Leadership Development
Tagged Division: Engineering Leadership Development
Page Count: 18
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--37182
Permanent URL: https://strategy.asee.org/37182
Download Count: 390

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Paper Authors

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Hwangbo Bae University of Florida

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Hwangbo Bae joined Simmons Research Lab at the University of Florida in August 2019 as a Ph.D. student. He received a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science degrees in Civil & Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech in 2018 and 2019, respectively. His major interest in research is understanding professional values of construction workforce and the role of leadership that promote employee motivation for work, as well as job satisfaction and wellbeing.

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Madeline Polmear University of Florida orcid.org/0000-0002-7774-6834

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Madeline Polmear is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida. She completed her B.S. in environmental engineering, M.S. in civil engineering, and Ph.D. in civil engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on bridging technical and nontechnical competencies to support the professional preparation and ethical responsibility of engineering students.

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Denise Rutledge Simmons P.E. University of Florida orcid.org/0000-0002-3401-2048

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Denise R. Simmons, Ph.D., PE, PMP, LEED-AP is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida. She has over ten years of construction and civil engineering experience working for energy companies and as a project management consultant; nearly 15 years of experience in academia; and extensive experience leading and conducting multi-institutional, workforce-related research and outreach. She is concerned first about the human condition and driven and inspired by what a civil engineering or construction organization can achieve by attending to the needs of its people.

Her current research centers engineers across three themes: diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); interactions between humans and technology; and competency development via education and training. She is currently investigating the development of artificial intelligence (AI) awareness as a critical competency for the engineering/construction workforce. As director of the Simmons Research Lab, her work on competence development in civil engineers and construction professionals has included a focus on out-of-class involvement and affective engagement in the educational experience, which she explored through an NSF-funded CAREER award. Her work has also explored competence development in the workplace and investigated factors such as personal satisfaction and resilience, organizational culture, informal learning, and work values. Her research has included a major emphasis on the leadership development of engineering and construction professionals, and she was the principal investigator of an NSF-funded grant to explore how leadership has been defined, developed, and measured in the fields of engineering and construction.

Dr. Simmons has garnered more than $4.5M in federal funding and authored 75 refereed publications. She has delivered 25 platform presentations at international, national, regional, and local conferences and meetings, and has no less than 38 invited/keynote presentations. In 2019, she was inducted into the Thomas Green Clemson Academy and was the recipient of Clemson University’s Glenn Department of Civil Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award.

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Abstract

To help engineering students gain the skills and knowledge necessary for their careers, academic programs are designed to develop student outcomes to meet industry needs. Workforce preparation requires both technical and professional skills. Leadership, is the nexus of technical and professional skills, is a skill employers expect engineering graduates to possess because it facilitates advancement throughout an engineer’s career. To develop students’ career preparation, this study examines faculty members’ perceptions of engineering students’ preparedness in leadership competencies. This work is part of a larger study examining faculty members’ perceptions of leadership and their roles in preparing engineering students for careers. This paper specifically seeks to answer this research question: What are engineering faculty members’ perceptions of students’ leadership competencies for career preparation? To address this research question, a qualitative approach was utilized that included in-depth interviews with 12 engineering faculty members at five US universities. The interview was designed to understand the ways that faculty members prepare their students for careers and their perspectives and practices related to leadership. During the interviews, the researcher provided a quote illustrating the relationship between the technical and professional skills expected from students and their employability: “Construction is a people business: In this business you're hired for your technical skills, fired for your lack of people skills, promoted for your management skills.” Participants were asked to contextualize the statement in their own discipline and describe their perceptions of leadership given the conceptualization of industry as a people business. The interview transcripts were analyzed deductively to ascertain perceptions of technical, management, and people skills and understand faculty members’ perspectives on students’ preparation. The findings suggested that faculty members (1) believed that students are under-prepared for the professional skills required in the engineering industry, (2) promoted students’ experiences outside the classroom as a way to improve professional skills, and (3) expressed mixed perceptions of requiring leadership education in college. This work contributes to the growing body of literature on developing engineering students with leadership competencies to support career preparedness. This work also helps illuminate faculty members’ different perceptions of leadership for students’ employability.

Citation
Format

Bae, H., & Polmear, M., & Simmons, D. R. (2021, July), Faculty Members’ Perceptions of Engineering Students’ Preparedness for Leadership Competencies Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37182

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - To help engineering students gain the skills and knowledge necessary for their careers, academic programs are designed to develop student outcomes to meet industry needs. Workforce preparation requires both technical and professional skills. Leadership, is the nexus of technical and professional skills, is a skill employers expect engineering graduates to possess because it facilitates advancement throughout an engineer’s career. To develop students’ career preparation, this study examines faculty members’ perceptions of engineering students’ preparedness in leadership competencies. This work is part of a larger study examining faculty members’ perceptions of leadership and their roles in preparing engineering students for careers. This paper specifically seeks to answer this research question: What are engineering faculty members’ perceptions of students’ leadership competencies for career preparation? To address this research question, a qualitative approach was utilized that included in-depth interviews with 12 engineering faculty members at five US universities. The interview was designed to understand the ways that faculty members prepare their students for careers and their perspectives and practices related to leadership. During the interviews, the researcher provided a quote illustrating the relationship between the technical and professional skills expected from students and their employability: “Construction is a people business: In this business you&#39;re hired for your technical skills, fired for your lack of people skills, promoted for your management skills.” Participants were asked to contextualize the statement in their own discipline and describe their perceptions of leadership given the conceptualization of industry as a people business. The interview transcripts were analyzed deductively to ascertain perceptions of technical, management, and people skills and understand faculty members’ perspectives on students’ preparation. The findings suggested that faculty members (1) believed that students are under-prepared for the professional skills required in the engineering industry, (2) promoted students’ experiences outside the classroom as a way to improve professional skills, and (3) expressed mixed perceptions of requiring leadership education in college. This work contributes to the growing body of literature on developing engineering students with leadership competencies to support career preparedness. This work also helps illuminate faculty members’ different perceptions of leadership for students’ employability.
AU  - Hwangbo Bae
AU  - Madeline Polmear
AU  - Denise Rutledge Simmons P.E.
CY  - Virtual Conference
DA  - 2021/07/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Faculty Members’ Perceptions of Engineering Students’ Preparedness for Leadership Competencies
UR  - https://strategy.asee.org/37182
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--37182
ER  -