TRAINeng-PDP: Training Engineers for Lifelong Learning though a Personal Development Process

The main purpose of the “TRAINeng-PDP | Training engineers for lifelong learning through a personal development process” project was to prepare students for a life full of learning in their future career by supporting students in their personal development process. This project emanated from an acknowledgement that engineering employees need to continuously update and up-skill their competencies, to keep pace with the changing technology and shifting requirements of the labour market (European Commission 2019, OECD 2019). The reduction of the half-life of knowledge serves to emphasise the importance of Lifelong Learning (LLL) to maintain and improve employability (Employer's statement 2019) and a Personal Development Process (PDP) appropriate to engineering students. Higher education institutions (HEIs) recognize their responsibility and are aware of the existing gaps.
We addressed two needs to facilitate this transition, targeting two main stakeholders: students and lecturers. First, industry not only reports difficulties in finding engineers, but also in finding engineers with the right (level of) skills (McKinsey report 2014). LLL skills are part of this set of competencies that should be more strongly emphasized. Creating awareness among engineering students about the nature and importance of LLL skills and facilitating the development of such skills, can be done with the help of tools such as a portfolio, which facilitates personal development (Heinrich et al. 2007). Students thus needed to be more and explicitly engaged in their personal development process in order (1) to develop and sustain a LLL attitude and (2) to have better insights in their competencies. Additionally, although teaching staff acknowledge the importance of LLL competencies, they are not considered the primary teaching goals (Nesterova 2019) nor do they feel adequately prepared to support students in developing a LLL attitude nor the PDP itself. A shift in the lecturers’ traditional mindset is required (Kamp 2016), since lecturers are a vital key partner in supporting students’ PDP process (Patel et al. 2013, Amiet et al. 2020). Lecturers thus needed to be more and explicitly engaged in the students' personal development process in order to support students and prepare the students adequately for a life of LLL.

Based on the aim of the project, three objectives were listed:
• OB1: Engage and motivate engineering students in their personal development process;
• OB2: Motivate and train lecturers to engage in the students' personal development process;
• OB3: Increase awareness about the competencies for LLL that are needed in engineering education & practice.

The first objective was to motivate and support students to develop the competencies that are needed in engineering practice for LLL throughout their study career and, by doing so, build the foundations for a lifelong learning (LLL) attitude. Self-reflection is an important attitude in the context of LLL, so in order to trigger this reflection, the following successive steps were introduced: identify, prepare, act, and monitor. Combining these five steps results in the personal development process. In TRAINeng-PDP we wanted to go beyond the more static idea of a personal development plan towards a more dynamic and interactive personal development process where students should be able to explore, train and reflect on the range of competencies during their study programme.
The support of lecturers is indispensable when aiming to increase students’ engagement in their PDP. Some of them feel highly uncomfortable in training or giving feedback on non-technical skills (Nesterova 2019). The second objective aimed to motivate and train lecturers to engage in the students' personal development process. To develop the required training materials it was necessary to take the lecturers’ perspectives into account by exploring how they view their role and by identifying their needs. In addition, engagement in this process will also contribute to their own professional development as lecturers in engineering education, resulting in lecturers who are more confident in training LLL skills and providing feedback.
The third objective aimed to increase the awareness among students and lecturers about the LLL competencies required in engineering. With this project we strived to move away from the existing conceptions about engineering, by creating a culture that integrates a more holistic view of competencies in engineering practice. By doing so, this project aimed to break through the stereotypical image of engineering which might increase the attractiveness of STEM education, especially for underrepresented groups, such as female students.