Assessing the impact of digital education and the role of the big data analytics course to enhance the skills and employability of engineering students

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Lin Xu¹  Jingxiao Zhang²  Yiying Ding¹  Gangzhu Sun³  Wei Zhang⁴  Simon P. Philbin⁵  Brian H. W. Guo⁶ 

[1] School of Foreign Languages, Northwest University;School of Economics and Management, Chang’an University;School of Civil Engineering, Zhengzhou University;Institute of China’s Science Technology and Education Policy, Zhejiang University;School of Engineering, London South Bank University;Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury

关键词: Digital education and training;    big data analytics courses;    engineering student employability;    hard skills;    Soft skills;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2022.974574

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

This study aims to explore the role of digital education in the cultivation of skills and employability for engineering students through researching the role of big data analytics courses. The empirical study proposes the hypothesis that soft and hard skills have positive effects on human capital, individual attributes, and career development dimensions of engineering students through constructing a basic framework of three dimensions of engineering students’ employability and two competency development dimensions of big data analytics courses. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 155 college engineering students and a structural equation model (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses. The results found that courses on big data analytics have a positive impact on engineering students’ abilities in both hard skills (p < 0.01) and soft skills (p < 0.001) dimensions, while soft skills have a more significant impact on engineering students’ employability. The study has practical and theoretical implications that further enriches the theoretical knowledge base on engineering education and broadens our understanding of the role of digitalization in enhancing the skills and employability of engineering students.

【 授权许可】

CC BY