Students´ skills perceptions for engineering

There is a continuous demand for skilled professionals, however it is not easy to educate an engineer who is prepared to meet the challenges encountered in this new century. Inspiring high school students to pursue engineering careers is closely aligned with an understanding of the importance of engineering skills and abilities. This paper presents a study that addresses the issue of high school students´ perceptions of how important some skills are to engineering, and how these perceptions relate to their intention to pursue engineering university degrees. We hypothesize that students´ overall perception on the importance of characteristics, abilities, competencies and qualities needed for engineering are directly related to their engineering career choice. Overall survey results demonstrated that high school students perceive how important some skills are to engineering. The results corroborate the thought that to be prepared for today´s engineering, high school students need not only solid education in science, mathematics, and technology, but also an education beyond high school subjects, including solid foundations in literacy, numeracy, and thinking skills to succeed in engineering.