A study on the key soft skills for success ful participation of students in multinational engineering education

  1. Luis Fernández-Sanz 1
  2. Maria Teresa Villalba 2
  3. José Amelio Medina 1
  4. Sanjay Misra 34
  1. 1 Computer Science Department, University of Alcalá, Edificio Politécnico, Campus Universitario
  2. 2 Department of Computer Science, Universidad Europea de Madrid
  3. 3 Department of Computer Engineering, Atilim University
  4. 4 Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Covenant University
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Journal:
The International journal of engineering education

ISSN: 0949-149X

Year of publication: 2017

Issue Title: Promoting Graduates’ Mobility in Engineering Education: Towards Global Engineers

Volume: 33

Issue: 6

Pages: 2061-2070

Type: Article

SCOPUS: 2-s2.0-85037722558 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR

More publications in: The International journal of engineering education

Abstract

Soft-skills have proved to be a necessary complement to technical skills in today’s multinational workplaces. Asuniversities are facing the challenge of promoting internationalization and mobility in students and teachers, they haveto decide how to help their students in developing these skills as well as increase their awareness on the cultural differencesin multinational settings. After a long trajectory of participation in multinational educational experiences, the authorslaunched a survey to check if their previous findings on the preferred soft skills by educational experts and managers stillremain valid after 5 years. Another goal of the study was the analysis of the link between preference for specific soft skillsand cultural background in each country as characterized by Hofstede’s indicators. The data collected from 123 expertsfrom 45 different countries haveconfirmed the existenceof a stable core set of preferred soft skillsat global level and also forEuropean countries. Results have also shown links between specific cultural indicators and preference for some soft skills.

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