Engineering Commons^™

Engineering Students' Preferred Roles: Are They Stable, Are There Gender Differences?, Darren Carthy, S. Craps, Kevin Gaughan, H. Knipprath, Brian Bowe, G. Langie

Conference Papers

Being able to situate oneself in an engineering role is a developmental process. Students may initially have idealized perceptions of a professional role and over time, they make this role more congruent with their own values and goals [1]. In light of this, Higher Education Institutions are being challenged to offer learning experiences and career exploration activities to enable students to clarify their interests, values and competencies in relation to a professional role [2]. This study compared the professional role preferences of more than 700 engineering students at TU Dublin (Ireland) and KU Leuven (Belgium). Professional role preference was measured …