Prospects for Mechatronics Graduates? How do we improve them?

1. Prospects for Mechatronics Graduates? How do we improve them? James Trevelyan November 2009

2. Acknowledgements • Sabbia Tilli – co-researcher • Private companies sponsoring research • Students

3. Engineering Graduates in Australia 2006

4. Occupations of those employed

5. Engineering Education in Australia

6. Growing up in Australia

7. Conclusions of this and related work • We have a plentiful reservoir of ‘other’-employed engineering graduates. • Engineering employment eludes the majority. • Canada and some other countries retain more graduates in engineering. • Cultural background seems to determine engineering and related management employment. • Engineering education in Australia makes no difference to prospects for migrants (compared to education at home)!

8. Questions • Why do we see these results? • Why is (was) there a skills shortage? • Longitudinal Study of Engineering Graduates

9. What do engineers really do? To Engineer is Human* but… novice V * Petroski, H. (1985). To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design. New York, St Martin's Press.

10. Motivation • Concerns at education misalignment? • What do engineers do? • Transition to practice? • Where are our engineers?

11. Significance • help us understand what training is effective • make the transition easier • explain the relevance of coursework to students • improve curriculum design • explain attrition loss to other occupations?

12. Aims of Study • What do novices do? • What training do they receive? • What do they learn by other means? • Perceived deficiencies in undergraduate education. • Career trajectories. • Engineering education continues after graduation….. even in the workplace

13. Method • 204 participants (participation rate 67% steady after 2.5 years), all disciplines • 3 –4 surveys each year • Electronic surveys (& some interviews) • Qualitative and quantitative questions

14. Aspects of Engineering Practice • Coordinationtelephone calls, visits, supervision, meetings, site engineering, monitoring, advocacy, procedures, team work, networking, mentoring • Engineering Processmanagement systems, project management, change management, configuration control, documentation management, maintenance management, operations management, inventory & logistics • Design, Review, Testdesign, detailing, review, check compliance with standards, research, component knowledge, testing, commissioning

15. Working Hours • Average paid hours/week: 42 • Average unpaid o’time/week: 8 • Highest total 88, • 10% > 60hrs, 7% < 40 hrs

16. Time Perception Surveys

17. Working Time Allocation(% of time, sorted by average time)

18. Working Time Allocation(% of time, sorted by category)

19. Main Results • 60% of time spent on human interaction • Approx half in real time (face to face, phone) • Approx half through documents, messages • Approx half represents informal technical coordination, e.g. seeking information from others, getting work done, delivering results on time, detecting and correcting misunderstandings etc. • 9% of time spent working with hardware • Rest is desk work or meetings • 4% average on design & coding (mechatronics 8%) • 3-18% on calculation & modelling (EE 3%, Petroleum highest)

20. Some mechatronic graduates in the study

21. More graduates (total 120 being followed)

22. Conclusions So Far • Diversity • Consistency (averages) • Insufficient learning opportunities • Nearly all GDPs could be greatly improved • Awareness gaps? GDP = Graduate Development Programme

23. Recent Developments • Course experience results for engineering are uniformly poor across Australia • Mismatch in expectations of graduates • Communication skill requirements are grossly misunderstood • Australian engineering projects are failing because of poor communication skills • Recent education research shows ways to significantly improve teaching effectiveness in technical fundamentals, improving professional skills at the same time.

24. Recent Feedback • Novice engineers don’t seem to understand how to create value for clients • Employers are worried but find it difficult to articulate their concerns • Key mechatronics stakeholders are concerned at graduate abilities, particularly in technical abilities • Team projects are reinforcing bad behaviour patterns

25. What do you need to do? • Start learning about teaching methods known to improve results: • Cooperative learning • Peer instruction • Variation theory • Link development of teaching skill to performance evaluation • Focus on effective learning of technical fundamentals • Threshold concepts – useful tool • Study what your graduates are actually doing. • Teach them effective listening and coordination skills.