[ICL 2016] EBEC as an alternative approach for complementary education

EBEC as an Alternative Approach for Complementary Education David Pinto1,5, Rita Faria2,5, Tamara Kovacevic3,5, Teodora Pavlovic3,5, Aleksandra Guliaeva4,5 1 Faculty

of Sciences and Technology of New University of Lisbon (david.joao.sousa.pinto@BEST.eu.org) 2 Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto 3 Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy of University of Belgrade 4 Bauman Moscow State Technical University 5 Board of European Students of Technology

Abstract. EBEC (European BEST Engineering Competitions) is a collaborative activity organized by BEST (Board of European Students of Technology) to provide complementary education to students. Being considered the biggest engineering competition in Europe, it consists of three rounds - local, national/regional (NRR) and the European final - where participants are presented with a challenge: A survey was delivered to the participants from the 15 NRR of EBEC, with 241 European higher education students answering. The obtained results revealed that the students are developing their teamwork, problem solving, selfmanagement, creativity and presentation skills. These skills are proved to be essential for the students’ future careers and professional lives, showing EBEC as a key activity to get one step closer from university to industry.

Keywords: Collaborative learning, BEST, soft skills, complementary education

1

Context

1.1

Engineering education and the engineer role

The term “engineering studies” It has been described both as “an art of application”, responding to the need of people by applying the principles which were put forward by the scientific facts [1], and as a broad field, to train engineers to function effectively in a multidisciplinary environment [2]. But what exactly is the role of an engineer? Engineers have been described as professionals which are involved in the application, operation, design, development and management of projects and processes [1]. Their role in a job will be affected by their technical skills, but the actual engineer must also be equipped with several non-technical skills to face new challenges, as they are indicated to a variety of roles that include management, leaders in business, industry and society [2]. In this way, engineering education is important to develop intellectual properties, but even more important if engineers, as “moral agents of change” [3], are to contribute to a greater society, bringing economic benefits to the ones that are part of it. Thus, adfa, p. 1, 2011. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

providing quality engineering education is providing the means to think critically about the future and the key to solve the major global challenges that the world is facing now.

1.2

Previous actions to improve engineering education

With the increased expectations and demands of the job market, a need arises to provide a broader interdisciplinary training to engineering students. This necessity was addressed by the Bologna Declaration, signed in 1999, suggesting a division in two cycles of studies, which were divided into the currently familiar undergraduate and graduate studies. In this new division, completing the first cycle means getting an opportunity to enter the job market [4].

With the goal to improve engineering education, courses should be certified by entities such as ABET (The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). The entity would define a set of skills that have to be acquired by the new graduate students.

These skills should be transmitted in the curricula of engineering programs, achieving: an ability to function in multidisciplinary teams; communicate effectively; identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems [4].

Besides the efforts made in the Bologna Declaration and ABET to provide skills that would better fit the job demands and expectations, a growing inconsistency exists between the skills that are expected from the graduates by the employers, and the skills delivered through the university curricula [5].

1.3

The impact of soft and hard skills

The word competence, defined by the ISO10015 as the application of knowledge, skills and behaviour that results in performance, has a real importance when it comes to training and education. Training based on competences development represents the dominant way of thinking in the field of human resources improvement, being particularly important in companies. Here we focus on two competences: hard and soft skills [6].

Soft skills, also known as employability skills, include communication, organization, leadership, negotiation and many other abilities that characterize relationships with other people. It presents a set of skills that pertain to personality, attitude and behaviour in contrast to the technical knowledge (fundamental engineering principles and laws) associated with academia - here considered as hard skills.

Research findings conducted by M. S. Rao reveal that people who are better equipped with hard and soft skills are likely to succeed professionally [7]. When it comes to students’ education, a balance between soft and hard skills is essential in creating successful professionals.

1.4

The desirable skills in an engineer

The industry is searching for fully prepared engineers with not only hard skills, but also developed soft skills which will help them behave and operate within an organization [5]. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) indicates several skills as a key to success for prosperous future engineers such as analytical thinking, creativity, good

communication, business and management knowledge, leadership, high ethical standards, professionalism, dynamism, resilience and flexibility [8]. In addition, AHECs (Area Health Education Centers), in their graduate recruitment and employability survey, mention: teamwork, positive attitude and customer awareness as the most important employability skills that graduates should possess when applying for a job [9].

1.5

BEST and EBEC

BEST (Board of Engineering Students of Technology) it’s a non-profit and a non-political students’ organization present in total of 95 Local BEST groups (LBG) in 33 countries that has a mission to develop students. To achieve this mission, BEST activities provide complementary educational activities, such as EBEC (European BEST Engineering Competition) which is the main focus of this research [10].

In EBEC project events, teams of students are challenged to solve tasks provided by BEST in 3 different competition levels: local, national/regional, and final round. The participants have 24 hours to solve the challenge, which can be in the format of team design (TD) or case study (CS). In TD, the students are required to build a prototype from simple materials that are subject to restrictions, such as time and budget. To build the prototype, each team has a budget in order to buy the needed materials, this way the final prototype should fulfil the following criteria: utility, economy and innovation [12]. In the CS format, the participants have to develop or optimize a hypothetical solution to a practical situation of a particular problem. To solve this challenge planning skills, analytical skills and awareness of social and economic issues are needed [10].

These two categories of EBEC involves more than 6000 students each year. The topics are developed in cooperation with companies’ partners in order to simulate the working environment and the challenges the employers are facing every day.

2

Goal

The study aims to investigate how EBEC, as an extracurricular activity, is developing students’ essential skills, needed in the labor market. These results will be used to increase the stakeholders’ (students, universities, industry) awareness on the importance of collaborative activities as an educational approach.

3

Methodology

For a better understanding of the skills that are being developed in EBEC, a survey was conducted to the participants of the 15 national/ regional rounds of EBEC in the year of 2015. In total, the national/regional rounds had 588 participants from 96 universities in 30 European countries. These participants are students enrolled in different degrees and in different year of studies.

The survey consisted of 31 items, divided in 3 types of questions: (i) Multiple choice questions - reflected the behaviour of the participants during the development of the

project, either CS or TD; (ii) Linear scale - evaluated the way participants felt and behaved through different situations. They were classified by the participants from 1 to 5, being 1 - Strongly Disagree and 5 - Strongly Agree in a linear scale; (iii) Checkbox questions - participants’ self-evaluation of the skills they most improved.

The survey was answered by 41% of the EBEC participants. All the presented results came in percentage of the total number of students that choose that specific option.

4

Results and Discussion

The survey delivered to the participants of NRR had several types of self-assessment questions, as described above. One of them asked them directly to choose at most 5 skills from a list of 18 professional and hard skills. The most relevant results of this self-assessment question can be arranged from the highest to the lowest as it follows: (i) teamwork (88%); (ii) problem solving (70%); (ii) time, conflict solving and project management (50%); creativity (50%); decision making (49%) and presentation skills (42%).

Explaining in detail each skill: Teamwork skills refers to “individuals working together in a cooperative environment to achieve common team goals through sharing knowledge and skills.” [11]. Leadership can be described as the capacity to inspire the others to exhibit a performance greater than their own expectations, and has influence on the involvement and work engagement of the group [12]. The intrinsic motivation it comes from the individual, however it’s very important inside a group because it’s generating an environment of knowledge sharing [13]. Self-management is related with time management and organization. It can be defined as the “ability to plan and carry out a workload efficiently and effectively” [14]. Problem solving and creativity it is described as a “can do” attitude by finding solutions to a problem [14]. Flexibility is the ability to respond positively to changing circumstances, it’s the capacity to adapt to a different area of expertise or a distinct work position that helps individuals to effectively manage their work and the demands and changes during their careers [15]. Communication is the ability to speak coherently, logically and concisely. It involves the capacity to listen the others [16]. For last, language proficiency, it’s the ability to read materials in other language, speak and write in a foreign language [14].

These skills can be acquiring during the university studies by being part of extracurricular activities, such as short courses, workshops, hackathons and engineering competitions. With these activities, engineering students are encouraged to gain and develop their emotional, intellectual, management and social skills [17].

Crossing these results with the AHECs findings, it’s possible to conclude that 4 of the top 5 skills that the students consider they are developing are the same that AHECs refer as crucial in engineering graduate recruitment (from the highest to the lowest: teamwork, positive attitude, problem solving, self-management and communication) [9].

Below there will be an analysis of the other questions and answers according to certain groups of skills, that are part of the top skills chosen by the respondents.

Teamwork and Decision making skills.

It’s important to understand EBEC participants’ behaviour during the competition and how it is influencing their success/failure. For that, the main answers are presented: When the teams didn’t know what to do, 59% of the students encouraged their teammates to get involved in the discussion and give input towards a solution and only 3% waited for the team to come up with a solution. These answers reveal that the participants tried to promote the discussion inside the group and stimulate the other members.

More than half of the participants (53%) shown to cooperate with moments of pressure and/or stress, as they have easily recognized the change of their behaviour and knew how to change it back to normal. Besides this, most of the EBEC participants tried to listen and understand their teammates’ opinions in order to come up with a conclusion. As 50% found it normal and tried to see things from his/her point of view, and 42% recognized the reason of the conflict and knew how to express themselves to come to a conclusion when a member of the team held a different opinion. This shows ease at communicating with others and dealing with the decision making process while respecting and taking the most out of others opinions.

Problem Solving and Creativity.

Through solving these type of challenges, either Case Study or Team Design, the students are working on their problem solving and creativity attributes. They receive the challenge only in the competition day, and have 24 hours to come up with a solution.

Team Design.

The following statements, “You learned about a subject through solving problems in a practical way.”; “You planned your project according to the credit budget of your team.” and “You thought in all the components that you needed before beginning the prototype.” were answered just by the students that were solving the TD. 55% of them agreed that they learn about a subject through a practical way. These skills were trained in group-based projects, which has been proven to be very important for engineers in their professional careers, once that it prepares them better for their first job after graduation [18]. According to the second and third statements, respectively, 50% planned their needs for components for the prototype in the beginning and 46% planned for the project considering the credit budget. This simulation is allowing the students to practice their problem management skill, and it’s also creating commercial awareness.

Case Study.

The results to the statements “You researched for information on several trustworthy sources.”, “You learned not only to develop a solution, but also to define it in a formal/scientific way.” and “You used numerical approaches and schemes to explain and synthesize your results.” were answered by the CS participants. It reveals that 65% used trustworthy sources, when they were searching information for their solution. 59% learnt to present the results in a scientific way, while 59% used numerical approaches, schemes and graphics to explain their conclusions.

Time, Conflict and Project Management.

According to the answers to the statement “You have more know-how on how to start, maintain and finish a project properly.”, 51% of the participants said that after participating in the EBEC they have more know-how on how to start, maintain and finish a project properly. This capacity involves not only know how to behave within a team (professional skills), but also how to present a solution in a technical way (hard skills).

Supporting the development of these skills, 79% of the students felt an improvement in their working methods since the local round.

These results indicate that after participating the first time in an EBEC competition, the next time that they were submitted to a similar situation, they are going to know how to deal with the challenge.

Developing the “know-how” it’s the main goal of EBEC, once that as The Royal Academy Engineering reported, “engineers play a crucial role in emerging and growth sector and, critically, engineering expertise is largely made up of “know-how” [19].

Presentation Skills.

Regarding presentation skills, according to statements “My presentation took longer/less than planned.” and “My team was prepared and the pitch went according to plan.”, 48% respected the presentation time limit and 55% felt prepared and that the pitch went according to plan. The majority of the participants didn’t practice the presentation extensively, which can be explained by the time constraints. It shows that EBEC is creating conditions where students have to put their skills in practice and develop more in order to succeed and sell their solution to the entity that proposed the challenge, which can be a company.

Contact with companies.

45% of the respondents did their first presentation to a company during EBEC. These results reveal that the participation in EBEC is helping to reduce the gap between students and companies. Presenting the projects to a jury, comprised by companies, is allowing the students to receive feedback from the corporate world, helping them to understand what are the expectations and the degree of demand asked by companies.

EBEC also provides the opportunity to interact with the companies in an informal environment. 25% of the respondents agree with the statement “you talked with companies in an informal environment”.

Flexibility.

51% of the EBEC participants said that the challenge was related to them or their teammates area of study. On the other hand, even having 49% of participants, which area was not related to the challenge, only 4% of all the participants were not able to find a solution for the problem It’s possible to conclude that during EBEC the students were able to work their flexibility and their capability to adapt to a new situation, out of their comfort area, in order to solve a problem.

Language Proficiency.

The EBEC participants had different levels of proficiency in English, just 1% of the participants have English as his mother tongue, while 45% consider that their English levels are basic and proficient. During the competition 55% of the students felt an improvement in their English skills after participating in EBEC. It’s possible to conclude that the proposal challenges in EBEC are allowing the participants to practice and develop their English communication, whether through writing the report, the communication between the students or even through the presentation.

In a world where the major companies are split all over the globe and present in all the continents, communicating with partners or affiliates it’s a very common need.

Through the development of the English it’s possible to decrease this lack of communication, once that English is the language that most of the people (i) thinks that is going to support them to proceed in their career and (ii) help them not just in their career planning, but also to find a job easier [20].

5

Conclusion

New discoveries in the field of engineering, new standards, new scientific proofs and changes in society, are placing a great challenge in front of the engineering education every day. With an enormous technology progress since the 20th century up until now, it is required from engineers to constantly renew their knowledge and skills. In the new era of education, universities need to focus more on teaching students how to learn and how to adapt in different environments [21].

EBEC, as a collaborative activity, it was here presented as an educational tool that can be used to change the way the educational system it’s working. It’s an event that develops students’ skills, complementing the knowledge that is being transmitted during the university studies and making it applicable to real life problems. Due to this, graduate students are well equipped with a set of skills that the companies are expecting them to have.

The results reveal that the most developed skills are teamwork, problem solving, self-management, creativity, decision making and presentation skills. It was also possible to perceive the participants’ behaviour, in terms of emotional intelligence, leadership, motivation and decision making. EBEC is important because it has the ability to develop these skills in a short amount of time and to create awareness and simulate conditions where the participants have to test and train these type of skills. Due to this, when entering into the job market, the students have more know-how and they are more aware about their comportamental skills.

EBEC is closing the gap between industry and universities. As the results revealed, some of the students had the opportunity to contact and receive feedback, by a company, for the first time.

These results are important because they reveal the importance of extracurricular activities for students’ development. In the future, the results can be used to increase the awareness for, not only BEST competitions, but also for other type of events. Doing

this, it’s possible to reach a bigger number of people and, consequently, develop more students.

6

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