A Validated and Reliable Instrument Investigating Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Competency in Generic Skills

Abstract

Background: Although generic skills development is a concern of educational policy and accreditation bodies, little is known about how engineering students perceive generic skills in relation to their motivation for learning such skills. The development of these skills is often done only through ad hoc approaches, without a well‐structured curriculum design framework. Disagreement over the nuances and interpretations of generic skills across disciplines makes framework design even more challenging.

Purpose/Hypothesis: To investigate students’ perceptions of generic skills on a disciplinary basis, this article reports the development and validation of the Generic Skills Perception Questionnaire designed for investigating engineering students’ perceptions of their level of competency in these skills.

Design/Method: The questionnaire was administered to 1,241 first‐year engineering students from three universities in Hong Kong. Most of the questionnaire was items asking students to rate their perceived level of competency in 38 generic skills. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to examine the psychometric properties of the instrument for providing evidence on reliability and validity.

Results: Exploratory factor analysis resulted in eight scales. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the correlated eight‐factor model and higher‐order factor model provided an acceptable fit with the data. Cronbach's alpha values indicated that the scales were reliable.

Conclusions: The questionnaire was reliable and valid. Findings from the questionnaire will help develop a conceptual framework facilitating the understanding of engineering students’ generic skills development.