The proposed research will follow the Tuning methodology:

  • The aim of the research is to collect data about generic and specific competencies required by the industrial sector in Europe, in order to establish competency profiles to be used as references for the curricula improvement in higher education. Within SIG1, questionnaires are currently under development for several fundamental engineering fields, i.e. Electrical Engineering and Mechatronics. Other fields relevant for the industry will possibly be investigated within other SIGs, according to the needs.
  • The population of the research consists of three target respondents: employers, graduates, and academics involved in the educational programs for engineers for each participant country. The opinions of respondents involved in various industrial sectors, including higher education, will be necessary in order to define the training needs in the relevant fields, from different perspectives.
  • Specific instruments for the research:

o        Questionnaire for the generic skills (for employers, graduates, and academics). After a first analysis, they have been adopted from the TUNING project without modification.

o        Questionnaire for the specific competencies (for employers, graduates, and academics) – will be elaborated in the weeks to come by teams led by the research coordinator and proposed to the SIG members for comments and improvement. The final version, issued from this debate will be used in the research.

o        Inventory form for the analysis of the engineering educational structures, length of studies in different countries, learning outcomes, workload. This form will be distributed to the national coordinators.

  • Procedure: each partner's contribution to the field research is:

o        to distribute the two types of questionnaires to the target respondents – employers, graduates, and academics;

o        to collect and transmit the data to the research coordinator;

  • The results: the data analysis will be structured on two levels.

o        country level

o        European level.

The language of the research is English. The research report will be published in the book: Tuning Industrial Educational Structures in Europe, part 1 - the first output of the WP1. The data statistical analysis will be made by the research coordinator.

Based on the inventory form, each national coordinator will produce a synthesis on the educational system (frame and practice) for engineering studies in the respective country, in order to provide a panorama of the engineering studies at European level to be included in the book.

We invite all project members to register for the enlarged research team and to actively participate in the actual research. Any suggestions regarding the research are welcome.

 

Research coordinator:

Marcela Rodica LUCA, Ph.D.

Associate professor

Transilvania University, Brasov

Email: marcela.luca@unitbv.ro