Leadership skills development among engineering students in Higher Education – an analysis of the Russell Group universities in the UK

ABSTRACT

Today, the engineering landscape is continually changing, and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have a responsibility to design curricula that address the growing demands of various industry sectors. Likewise, the roles and responsibilities of an engineer are evolving; requiring a further broadening of the current engineering curriculum. As a profession, engineering draws upon broad interdisciplinary knowledge, and when training twenty-first-century engineers, universities should follow a more comprehensive teaching and learning approach, with a focus on both technical and soft skills including the integration of leadership into engineering curricula. However, the spectrum of engineering leadership is not well-defined. Leadership is one of the most widely sought-after skills in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) industries; it is, therefore, clear that more investigation needs to be carried out into this area of engineering pedagogy. One of the most distinct gaps in the literature is that there is little or no consensus on what approaches should be undertaken to integrate leadership in engineering courses by those in academia. This paper seeks to shed light on some of these gaps, with the primary objective of the evaluation of the current state of leadership education using a nation-wide sample of BEng¹ Electronic Engineering course structures and contents at Russell Group² universities in the UK. It highlights the case study of the University of York, where there is a strong emphasis on the integration of engineering leadership and management skills within the current BEng Electronic Engineering course structure.

KEYWORDS:

• Leadership
• Engineering Leadership
• Higher Education
• Curriculum Design

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr Noel Jackson from the Engineering Education and Management Research group, Department of Electronic Engineering (University of York) and Mr Brian Greener for their valuable feedback on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 BEng - Bachelor of Engineering.

2 The Russell Group is a professional organization that represents 24 leading world-class universities in the UK.

3 MEng - Master of Engineering.

4 The National Student Survey (NSS) is an annual survey in the UK of over 500,000 students, in which respondents are asked to state their honest feedback regarding key areas such as course teaching, assessment and feedback, learning resources, and overall satisfaction.

5 A Chartered Engineer is a protected title registered with, and issued by, the Engineering Council. Issuance of the title demonstrates that the receiver has met the proper knowledge and skills base to assume a position of engineering leadership, accountability and personnel management. See (Engineering Council, 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua Daley

Mr Daley is a Quantitative Analyst in the Energy Finance Sector and possesses an MSc in Mathematical Finance from the University of York. Prior to his MSc, Mr Daley obtained a BEng degree (1st class) in Electronic Engineering from the Department of Electronic Engineering, University of York in the year 2019. His principal interests are in the fields of Financial Engineering, Engineering Leadership, and Management.

Bidyut Baruah

Dr Baruah is a Lecturer in Engineering Management from Department of Electronic Engineering, University of York. He is also the programme leader for MSc Engineering Management where he teaches a number of modules in the areas of entrepreneurship, marketing, business and innovation management, leadership, and research methods. Dr Baruah is himself an alumnus of the MSc Engineering Management programme at York, which he completed, with Distinction, in 2011. He obtained his PhD, in Intrapreneurship and Organization Management, from the University of York in 2015. His main research interests include Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship, Entrepreneurship Education, Leadership, Marketing, Innovation Management, and Qualitative Research. He has published a range of articles in these areas.