TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessment of engineering students' leadership competencies
AU - Özgen, Sibel
AU - Sánchez-Galofré, Olga
AU - Alabart, Joan R.
AU - Medir, Magda
AU - Giralt, Francesc
PY - 2013/4
Y1 - 2013/4
N2 - Leadership development has become increasingly important in engineering education as companies look for engineers with leadership, communication, and teamwork skills. To embed these competencies into engineering curricula, a competency-based educational model has been implemented in which 4th-year engineering students led design project teams made up of 1st-year students. The study described in this paper had two aims. The first was to determine which leadership competencies were exhibited by the 4th-year students. The second was to assess their perceived leadership effectiveness. We identified leadership competencies using the behavioral event interview technique and measured leadership effectiveness using a 360-degree assessment. The results demonstrate that the student leaders exhibited the following competencies most frequently: commitment to learning, interpersonal communication, teamwork, and results orientation. The results also indicate that the 1st-year students perceived the student leaders' leadership effectiveness as satisfactory. The educational model described in this paper can easily be implemented in other institutions to encourage and nurture leadership talent in students.
AB - Leadership development has become increasingly important in engineering education as companies look for engineers with leadership, communication, and teamwork skills. To embed these competencies into engineering curricula, a competency-based educational model has been implemented in which 4th-year engineering students led design project teams made up of 1st-year students. The study described in this paper had two aims. The first was to determine which leadership competencies were exhibited by the 4th-year students. The second was to assess their perceived leadership effectiveness. We identified leadership competencies using the behavioral event interview technique and measured leadership effectiveness using a 360-degree assessment. The results demonstrate that the student leaders exhibited the following competencies most frequently: commitment to learning, interpersonal communication, teamwork, and results orientation. The results also indicate that the 1st-year students perceived the student leaders' leadership effectiveness as satisfactory. The educational model described in this paper can easily be implemented in other institutions to encourage and nurture leadership talent in students.
KW - Engineering Education
KW - Leadership
KW - Personnel Management
KW - Professional Personnel
KW - Teamwork
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84875203754&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84875203754&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1061/(ASCE)LM.1943-5630.0000168
DO - 10.1061/(ASCE)LM.1943-5630.0000168
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84875203754
SN - 1532-6748
VL - 13
SP - 65
EP - 75
JO - Leadership and Management in Engineering
JF - Leadership and Management in Engineering
IS - 2
ER -