Abstract:

Engineering is since always a transdisciplinary bridge between science, technology, and effective application in society. This effectiveness is, without a doubt, related to the quality of engineering education, which strongly depends on perceptions and expectations that the actors involved in the process have about the training of future engineers. These stakeholders include not only teachers and students, with crucial roles in the quality of teaching and learning processes, but also partners outside Higher Education Institutions (HEI), such as those coming from the business and industrial sectors. To involve and connect these stakeholders, the Excellence in Engineering Education (E3@UA) initiative has been developed at the University of Aveiro, focusing on the role of HEI teachers on engineering areas, and particularly on the development of their pedagogical skills, necessary to better prepare the future professionals for Society’s needs and challenges. E3@UA project allowed to define the proper competencies of engineering teachers, based on three major pillars: a personal one (considering the teacher as an agent for quality in teaching and learning); an institutional one (focusing on the support of the institution, aiming to enhance and empower teaching and learning); and an external dimension (analysing how a close linking to society can contribute to the quality of the overall expected outcomes). At a global level, E3@UA can be seen as running within two distinct scales. On a macro aggregating scale, the project is based on the definition of the optimal characteristics that guide the teaching activity, leading to the connection with learning by means of the construction of the competencies expected for graduated engineers. On a second, finer scale, a tool based on the Kano model was created, being continuously developed and named Higher Education Assessment Tool (HEAT). Based on a set of innovative metrics, the goal of HEAT is to measure not only the perceived quality but mainly the alignment of perceptions between stakeholders that can lead to the construction of a common path of quality. This work presents the overall results of the project, providing a special focus on the interaction and data achieved by the E3@UA project with Society, focusing on the alignment between HEI internal stakeholders (teachers and students) and external stakeholders (namely companies integrating engineers in their workforce).

Keywords:

Engineering Teaching and Learning, Link to Society, Perceived Quality, Expectations’ Alignment.