Exploration of Skills Required by Engineering Faculty to Mentor Freshmen Undergraduate Students for Interdisciplinary Design Projects

Contribution: This study identifies the skills required by the faculty to mentor first-year interdisciplinary design projects. The findings are compiled as a set of themes that can act as a guide for engineering educators in mentoring interdisciplinary design projects.Background: The National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) Engineer of 2020 report states that developing solutions to real-world problems requires engineers to possess skills to access, understand, evaluate, synthesize, and apply information and knowledge from multiple disciplines. However, most engineer-ing students possess strong monodisciplinary expertise and skills, which are insufficient when students graduate and work in the industry. In order to equip engineers to solve real-world problems, engineering education should focus on building com-petencies and bringing the flavor of interdisciplinary education into the undergraduate engineering curriculum. While there is a growing call to introduce interdisciplinary courses to under-graduate engineering students, the ability of the faculty to teach and mentor students from multiple disciplines is a concern.Research Question: This study qualitatively investigates the question, What skills do engineering faculty consider important to mentor first-year interdisciplinary engineering projects? Methodology: The study is situated in a project-based learning course offered at first-year engineering at a university in India. It identifies the skills a faculty needs to possess to mentor students working on interdisciplinary (mechatronic) design projects through thematic analysis of faculty and student interviews.Findings: Performing qualitative analysis on the data col-lected from the two sources, including semistructured interviews with the faculty and students focus group discussion, reveals three dimensions on which the engineering faculty needs to be trained on. It included project management and interpersonal and interdisciplinary skills.

Automated summary

This study identifies the skills required by faculty to mentor interdisciplinary design projects for first-year students. The findings provide guidance for engineering educators in mentoring such projects and highlight the importance of project management and interdisciplinary skills.