Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

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Author: search.filters.author.Sangwan, DevikaSubject: search.filters.subject.Humanities

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 25
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    Essentiality of knowing transversal competencies: towards engineering education sustainability and industry readiness of engineering students
    (The European Society For Engineering Education (SEFI), 2022) Sangwan, Devika
    Engineering education is to prepare engineers for real-world challenges and seek novel solutions to cater to society's different needs. There is an increase in the global demand for industry-ready engineers. Engineering education sustainability and industry readiness are mutually inclusive, where the former is the combination of different skills and transversal competencies, while the latter is all about their applicability. Transversal competencies, transferable across disciplines, chisel engineering students to become versatile and practical on the shop floor. Sustainability in engineering education is usually discussed only from the ecological/environmental viewpoints. This paper tries to find out the relevance of transversal competencies from the perspectives of engineering students at three levels: the most recurring competencies, the competencies they lack, and the ones that need improvement. Recurring and essential transversal competencies such as problem-solving, creativity and innovation, communication, lifelong learning etc., were identified from different policy frameworks of accreditation agencies, industry reports, organizational reports, and academia. Primary data was collected from final-year engineering students for this exploratory research through semi-structured interviews. These transversal competencies, latent throughout the formative years, have a definite role in the engineer's industry readiness, making engineering education sustainable. The need for industry readiness of the engineering students indicates the sustainability of engineering education, which can bridge the gap between the industry and academia. The paper reveals opportunities for further expansion of the competency frameworks in the policymaking and accreditation procedures.
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    Engineering undergraduates knowledge: insights into skills awareness, difference and interdependence
    (Emerald, 2024) Sangwan, Kuldip Singh; Sangwan, Devika
    This study seeks insights into the engineering undergraduates’ knowledge of problem-solving process, teamwork characteristics and communication skills. Design/methodology/approach The data for the study were collected through consecutive sampling technique from 78 engineering undergraduates at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, Pilani Campus, India on a five-point Likert scale-based questionnaire.
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    From Margaret Noble to Sister Nivedita: Mapping a Colonial Woman’s Journey to India in Search of a ‘Home’
    (CEEOL, 2022) Sangwan, Devika
    While stories of travels from Britain to India during the colonial times were replete with stereotypes, the journey of an Irish Lady, Margaret Noble (1867–1911) and her subsequent transformation into Sister Nivedita (the one dedicated to the cause) was unique in many senses. Attracted by her Guru (Spiritual Master) she came to Calcutta, India on her spiritual quest in 1898, where she immersed herself in the local culture, learned the language, and significantly contributed to women’s progress. Her involvement with local intelligentsia and nationalism highlighted the Indian values, talents and erudition to the outside world. Her journey showcased her spirit that could transcend the rigid European orthodoxy for White women in a colonized land and placed her as one of the leading architects of modern India. Earlier studies have not recognised Nivedita as a social reformer. Most importantly, works on her seldom refer to her struggle and subsequent triumph over limitations imposed on her in terms of racial othering, geographical positionality and gendered subjectivity. This paper addresses her struggle and celebrates her successful navigation in transcending the limitations and restrictions of both her Irish culture and the Indian culture and highlights her significant contributions towards human race at large.
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    An Insightful Display of Diaspora in Preeti Singh’s Circles of Silence
    (Literary Voice, 2013-03) Sangwan, Devika
    Preeti Singh, the valuable gifted writer, currently lives in Kuwait with her diplomat husband. Like all contemporary female writers she also has joined the race to give the readers the view of life perceived by female writers. This upcoming authoress has generated considerable ripples with her maiden novel Circles of Silence. The peripatetic course of Preeti Singh's life in the United States, Egypt, Afghanistan, India and Kuwait has helped her present a multidimensional view of life in her first venture. Though Nilanjana Roy (2002) feels “(t)o call Preeti Singh an emerging Indian writer might be taking things too far” yet her credentials as an engaging writer cannot be brushed aside. This editor of the Oxford University Press, New Delhi has contributed in the arena of articles, reviews and short stories to inch towards her own creative work. Her exposure to other nationalities and varied life styles has given her first hand exposure to the feeling of diaspora, a feeling of mixed losses at multiple scales. “Normally diaspora fiction lingers over alienation, loneliness, homelessness, existential rootlessness, nostalgia, questioning, protest and assertions and quest of identity; it also addresses issues related to amalgamation or disintegration of cultures” (Jha 2006 97). This paper attempts to trace pangs of diaspora encompassing nostalgia, pain, rootlessness, stillness in life and a lingering desire to be embraced and accepted with warmth.
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    Studies in Aesthetic Delight (Parmananda) in Hindi Film Adaptations
    (NEHU Journal, 2015) Sangwan, Devika
    Film adaptations of literary works act as a foreground for contested discussions on evolving parameters to defining and approximating them as adaptations. Film theorists handy with technological aspects of filmmaking examine them from specifications of the cinematic art. Literary theorists take up available treatises from semiotics, psychology or art and dissect a film from subject-centered approaches. As film adaptations strive for a formal identity in the wake of multitude of perceptions, this paper looks at the adaptations in Bollywood from the Hindu concept of rasa. The paper contends that stages of action, characterization, motivations and above all the holy gaze of the audience all contribute to the building up of one prominent sentiment in a performance, the relish of which is experienced as a blissful state (parmananda) by the spectator
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    Velutha's Marginalized Sublimity in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things/ 37
    (Literary Voice, 2017-03) Sangwan, Devika
    Suppression, all pervading mercurial phenomenon accommodating marginality of caste, race, money, etc., nurtures some of the major disparities in human society, only to deprive the deserving souls of the credit and bliss of fulfillment. The deprivation not only stubs the burgeoning acknowledgment of the bounties of life but also smashes the tender sensibilities only to let the resentment settle in. The apparent quality of untouchability by birth and the inherent qualities of the sublimity of soul always remain in tussle for “… a real individual, lovable, thwarted, sometimes grand, sometimes weak (with) … broad intelligent face, (and) graceful torso” (Anand vii). Viewed against the backdrop of social iniquities and flagrant violations as the disdainful baggages of History, the most “striking aspect of the novel, The God of Small Things is the treatment of the dalits. Velutha stands out as the representative of the untouchables in the novel. They were a class of people who were not allowed to walk on the public roads, not allowed to cover their upper bodies and not allowed to carry umbrellas. To add to the humiliation they had to put their hands over their mouths when they spoke, to divert their polluted breath away from those whom they addressed” (Manavar 124-125). In spite of all these social barbarities, unpleasant choices and denied the space to explore successfully, Velutha manages to become the god of the small things to a woman and her children who matter to nobody. His supposed lacuna, a low caste birth, makes him more outstanding against the backdrop of so-called superiors. Indubitably, his societal duties and responsibilities include no rights, no equality and no dream of acceptance, not to speak about respect. Societal paralytic incumbency fails to etiolate his human
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    Journey of the Displaced from Idealization to Realization in Anita Desai’s In Custody
    (IJMESS, 2018) Sangwan, Devika
    Displacement cannot be bound to any single aspect but tends to include anything and everything that marks the distance and shift in real or ideal sense. This paper focuses on the eye opening journey of the protagonist of Anita Desai’s novel In Custody. Enamoured by the flimsy cobweb of his idealism Deven stops to grow which makes him a misfit in his familial, social and professional life. A chance to interview his ideal Urdu poet Nur proves to be chance to bring him face to face with the reality of his abject failure. Dejected, rejected and thrown to the corridors of lamentation. He realized that the life lived and the life desired may not be necessarily and seemingly same. This meeting serves him from falling down in the same abyss. He may not turn out to be an epitome of perfection but at least he has touched upon the realization not to glide down.
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    Research-based Learning for Skill Development of Engineering Graduates: An empirical study
    (Elsevier, 2019) Sangwan, Devika; Sangwan, Kuldip Singh
    The engineering graduates should have interdisciplinary knowledge in addition to theoretical knowledge to survive in dynamic industrial environment. Literature reveals that Indian engineering graduates need to develop problem solving, solution development, social skills in engineering graduates. Research-based learning (RBL), one of the outcome-based learning techniques, closes the gap between theory and application. It involves the learner to design, experience and reflect the entire process of learning. Inquiry forms one of the important elements of RBL which also develops creativity and discovering new techniques breaking the monotonous process for solution development. The present study conducted an empirical analysis to examine the role of RBL in skill development of engineering graduates. The participants are the recent graduates of Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, Pilani campus and those who had done thesis/dissertation. Thesis/dissertation involves the learner in research process such as problem identification, hypothesis formulation, design, data collection and analysis, interpretation, critical review, etc. An online survey questionnaire has been used to assess the skills. The results demonstrated that the use of RBL develops and enhances problem solving, domain knowledge, language and communication, communication & information technology, general learning, academic knowledge, attitude, ethics skills. It is also opined that use of RBL and activities will foster to reduce the gap between the skills required in the industry and learned at the university. Thus, it is important to integrate the RBL in engineering curricula to provide exposure and develop required skills.
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    Influence of metacognitive awareness on engineering students’ performance: a study of listening skills
    (Elsevier, 2019) Sangwan, Devika
    Educative learning equips learners not with a mechanical set of skills but with a fertile thinking that enables them to holistically nurture their knowledge and skills. Metacognitive awareness, an advanced understanding and execution of skills helps learners not only acquire knowledge of their own cognitive processes but also manage learning activities. This paper aims to trace the impact of metacognition on the extent of the learning (listening skills), the difference between the levels of understanding (assumed and attained), learning of the performance and application of theoretical knowledge of listening skills among engineering students. The study proposes a five-step AWARE concept of metacognition to help the learners become more aware of and reflect on their learning. The study has used consecutive sampling technique and participants are engineering students of BITS Pilani, India. Engineering students assume that their level and clarity of awareness is very high but the findings do not support their assumption. There is a gap in the theoretical acquisition and practical applicability. Metacognition helps learners understand what they know, what they do not know, what they learn, and how they learn. Understanding of and clarity about the process of learning would enable the engineering students to use their listening skills in the learning factories to facilitate the sharing of information.
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    Development of the Transversal Competencies in Learning Factories
    (Elsevier, 2020) Sangwan, Devika; Sangwan, Kuldip Singh
    Transversal competencies in engineering education enable the engineering graduates to be competitive and adaptive to address the real world industry needs. Learning factories (LF) are suitable tools for enhancing learning experiences where the core competencies and transversal competencies are applied according to different work related situations. Different accreditation agencies have identified and classified different transversal competencies according to the learning outputs of engineering education. This paper tries to identify which of the transversal competencies can be strengthened by the engineering graduates in the learning process at the LF at the stage of planning, execution, and reflection. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with instructors and students who have experience with the LF. LF provide the suitable environment to help engineering graduates to understand and develop transversal competencies – teamwork, communication, creativity and innovation, and lifelong learning – at different stages.