Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
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Item Engineering undergraduates knowledge: insights into skills awareness, difference and interdependence(Emerald, 2024) Sangwan, Kuldip Singh; Sangwan, DevikaThis 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.Item Enhancing Employability Skills of Engineering Graduates(Springer, 2020-07) Shekhawat, SushilaEngineering education demands numerous challenges in the present context due to the difficulties posed by the placement scenario. Demand for competent engineering professionals has made the selection process highly challenging giving rise to a need for comprehensive education pedagogy not just confined to inculcating hard core technical attributes but also human skills. Hence there is an urgent need to continuously upgrade the curriculum design of engineering courses so as to better equip the technical graduates with employability skills. BITS, Pilani, one of the premiere technical institutes in India has a well-designed pool of structured courses such as Business Communication, Technical communication, etc. which do incorporate modules such as Professional Presentations, Group Discussions, Interviews, etc. so as to hone the soft skills of the students. The paper attempts to deal with the experiential innovative methodology adopted in the course Business communication so as to enhance the employability skills of the Engineering students.Item Integrating Humanities and Liberal Arts in Engineering Curriculum: Need, Experiences and New Directions(JSSH, 2013) Shekhawat, SushilaEngineering curriculum in India, by and large, focuses only on imparting education in the respective technical domain. While such a system has been producing reasonably competitive technocrats, it has not reected much upon the concept of producing well- rounded engineers. An integration of different streams of knowledge- especially liberal arts, humanities and social sciences - in the engineering curriculum would add this missing dimension. Further, the changing contours of an engineer’s profession have made it necessary for one to broaden one’s outlook and to be able to connect with the rest of the disciplines. Educators world over have started recognising the importance of creativity and critical thinking which are an integral part of liberal arts, humanities and social sciences. In the western context, there has been a greater emphasis on including these courses in the engineering curriculum. In the Indian context, very few institutes have made some niche efforts in including humanities components in their course package. And often, courses in communication, technical writing, principles of management etc. are counted as the only components in humanities. It is very rare for Tech schools to either have open electives or compulsory credits in humanities. This article discusses how important it is for us academics in India to look beyond imparting mere technical education and to include courses in the areas of liberal arts, humanities and social sciences.Item Capacity Building Through Cross Cultural Skills Among Engineering Graduates of India: A Case Study of Cross Cultural Skills Course at BITS Pilani(Springer, 2020-07) Lata, PushpMulticulturalism being a global reality of the present world, it has become imperative to develop Cross-Cultural Competence (CCC) to become successful as a professional and function effectively as an individual in personal and social interactions. Considering the fact that India with 60 percent of its population being under 25 years of age, it must educate its young generation to succeed in a globalized world. Another vital fact that endorses the need for change is revealed in a study, which states that about 20–33% of the 1.5 million engineers who pass out every year in India, run the risk of not getting a job at all. Among the multiple reasons for their being unemployable, one of the strongest is their lack of exposure to “other” cultures and their nuances that makes it hard for the leading MNCs to hire them. Keeping these facts in mind the present study argues the need for capacity building of engineering graduates through cross cultural skills. This paper recommends a course on Cross Cultural Skills to be offered to engineering students in order to inculcate in them the desired global competency among them. Besides this, the paper also discusses the different types of activities and tasks that are done in Cross Cultural Skills (CCS) classroom at BITS Pilani with a view to grooming students as effective University ambassadors. It also shares the feedback given by students to highlight the need for developing cross cultural skills and the success of the training during the course.Item Improving Classroom Delivery of Engineering Education Through Design Thinking(Springer, 2020-07) Sharma, Sangeeta; Sande, Priya ChristinaTeaching is an art which requires systematic exploration in manifestations, be it curriculum design, pedagogical strategies and theories, teaching material and practices, and technological interventions. Due to the interface of technology and the mitigating attention span of the students, teachers have realized that the old method of teaching is not relevant anymore. As a result in the different courses offered at the Engineering institute, the teachers are adopting divergent thinking, synectics and design thinking for better understanding of the concepts. Design thinking offers better solutions to the problems and includes analogies and synectics to clarify the concepts. Design thinking aids better student participation and fosters teacher-student relationship. The students are encouraged for team based learning, which make them more attentive. This paper discusses how design thinking has been applied in two popular courses at Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences, BITS Pilani namely General Biology and Computational Fluid Dynamics. The feedback suggests that through analogies and design thinking the profound concepts are made easy to grasp.Item Influence of metacognitive awareness on engineering students’ performance: a study of listening skills(Elsevier, 2019) Sangwan, DevikaEducative 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.Item Development of the Transversal Competencies in Learning Factories(Elsevier, 2020) Sangwan, Devika; Sangwan, Kuldip SinghTransversal 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.Item Role of Self-efficacy in the Learning Output of Engineering Education(Springer, 2020-07) Sangwan, DevikaSelf-efficacy, one’s perception and self-belief in their abilities to do a particular task successfully, plays a crucial part in engineering education. It helps students enhance and strengthen their learning skills. The recent research has added multifaceted and integrated self-efficacy as the main factor of learning, both theoretical and practical. When placed in the professional situation, engineering students seem to face challenges to make significant use of their knowledge despite rigorous exposure to and training in core competency, communication skills, multidisciplinary team work, etc. The paper aims to study the concept of self-efficacy and trace its role in shaping the engineering skills of students. The study is descriptive in nature. The findings indicate that self-efficacy has an essential role in reinforcing the learning output of engineering education.