Global competence learning in engineering classrooms: exploring educators’ perspectives and practices

Abstract

Higher engineering institutions strive towards educating globally competent students, and this article examines curricular approaches to global competence education. Based on qualitative interviews, it explores engineering educators' perspectives on student preparedness, their experiences with global competence integration, and their attributions of responsibility for such learning. In its findings, the article highlights educators' doubts about engineering graduates' preparedness for global workplaces. Moreover, it retraces a variety of educators' approaches to integrating global competence learning and highlights the challenges they face in this endeavour. The article further shows how engineering educators perceived global competence education as important and acknowledged their own role in supporting it, but attributed the main responsibility for ensuring students' competence development to institutional management. The article concludes with a discussion on the potential consequences of the educators' perceptions and examines possibilities for a strategic institutional approach to global competence education. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Curriculum development Internationalisation soft skills Engineering education Global competence teaching and learning

Index Keywords

Engineering education Students Teaching and learning Curriculum development Engineering classrooms Engineering educators Engineering institutions Global competence Internationalisation Learning in engineering Qualitative interviews Soft skills

Author Affiliations

Department of Learning in Engineering Sciences, The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Stockholms, Sweden

Funding & Acknowledgements

Microsoft

This work was supported by Kungliga Tekniska H\u00F6gskolan [grant number V-2021-0505]. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the educators who shared their insightful thoughts and perspectives, the students who assisted the data collection, the KTH sustainability office who provided funding to support this study, my supervisor Bj\u00F6rn Kjellgren who provided his valuable feedback to this article, and Anders Ros\u00E9n who supported the early phases of the research project. In accordance with the publishing guidelines, I would also like to acknowledge the use of Microsoft Copilot (GPT-4), which was used to spell-check the final version of the manuscript.

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, KTH

Grant: V-2021-0505

This work was supported by Kungliga Tekniska H\u00F6gskolan [grant number V-2021-0505]. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the educators who shared their insightful thoughts and perspectives, the students who assisted the data collection, the KTH sustainability office who provided funding to support this study, my supervisor Bj\u00F6rn Kjellgren who provided his valuable feedback to this article, and Anders Ros\u00E9n who supported the early phases of the research project. In accordance with the publishing guidelines, I would also like to acknowledge the use of Microsoft Copilot (GPT-4), which was used to spell-check the final version of the manuscript.

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, KTH

This work was supported by Kungliga Tekniska H\u00F6gskolan [grant number V-2021-0505]. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the educators who shared their insightful thoughts and perspectives, the students who assisted the data collection, the KTH sustainability office who provided funding to support this study, my supervisor Bj\u00F6rn Kjellgren who provided his valuable feedback to this article, and Anders Ros\u00E9n who supported the early phases of the research project. In accordance with the publishing guidelines, I would also like to acknowledge the use of Microsoft Copilot (GPT-4), which was used to spell-check the final version of the manuscript.

References 10 References

1 undefined, (2018)

2 Almeida, Lilian Maria De Souza, Engineering communication in industry and cross-generational challenges: an exploratory study, European Journal of Engineering Education, 46, 3, pp. 389-401, (2021)

3 Almeida, Joana, Enhancing the intercultural effectiveness of exchange programmes: formal and non-formal educational interventions, Intercultural Education, 27, 6, pp. 517-533, (2016)

4 Arasaratnam-Smith, Lily A., Developing global graduates: essentials and possibilities, Research in Comparative and International Education, 15, 1, pp. 20-26, (2020)

5 Ashford, Nicholas Askounes, Major challenges to engineering education for sustainable development: What has to change to make it creative, effective, and acceptable to the established disciplines?, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 5, 3, pp. 239-250, (2004)

6 Teaching for Global Competence in A Rapidly Changing World, (2018)

7 Ball, Aaron G., Identification and validation of a set of global competencies for engineering students, International Journal of Engineering Education, 28, 1, pp. 156-168, (2012)

8 Barak, Miri I., Science Teacher Education in the Twenty-First Century: a Pedagogical Framework for Technology-Integrated Social Constructivism, Research in Science Education, 47, 2, pp. 283-303, (2017)

9 Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, (2013)

10 Bennett, Dawn, An Australian study of possible selves perceived by undergraduate engineering students, European Journal of Engineering Education, 42, 6, pp. 603-617, (2017)

Global competence learning in engineering classrooms: exploring educators’ perspectives and practices

How to Cite