Abstract:

Social and Communication Skills and Engineering Research Tools subject is offered in the Bachelor’s Degree in Automotive Engineering – DUAL, at the Faculty of Engineering Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the Basque Country (Spain). This is a first-year course, in the first period, with two distinct missions: on the one hand, it aims to offer students, at the beginning of their university studies, the possibility of getting to know each other beyond the academic environment. On the other hand, it aims to contribute to the training of students in social skills, not only on a personal level, but also in terms of DUAL training. The DUAL training consists of 42 ECTS credits of training in companies of the automotive sector.

The subject’s syllabus covers very diverse aspects: from the gender perspective to the use and management of tools that contribute to engineering research, going through emotional aspects such as empathy or assertiveness, among others.

Since the beginning, back in the 2017/2018 academic year, the objective of the teaching team has been to seek the relationship between all the topics and combine the content to be developed in the entire subject. In recent years, efforts have been made to achieve that idea through cooperative teamwork. This article explains the design carried out, its implementation and the results achieved, which confirm that interest in the subject increases once it has been taken.

Keywords:

Cooperative learning, soft skills, automotive, engineering.