Student Practicum Engagement
Access the industry survey here
By engaging with industry, student engineers develop capabilities, self-efficacy, motivation, and professional identity, among other outcomes. Many students engage with industry by completing work experience, also known as a practicum. Previous studies have shown that engagement with engineering practice is important for engineering education however, access to opportunities and quality of experiences is variable.
In a workshop held in 2021 student engineers and supervisors revealed that engagement has been challenging due to COVID and other issues. This triggered the need for further research into the issues and challenges that students, industry employers and supervisors face.
Aim of the study
The aim of this study is to obtain a clearer picture of the challenges of how and when students engage with professional practice during their academic studies and how this could be improved. The results of this study will assist in furthering discussion between Engineers Australia, Australian Tertiary Institutions, and industry on how to improve student engagement with professional practice for both students and industry.
Key accreditation requirements of engineering education are frequently met by workplace learning. Therefore, Engineers Australia and tertiary institutions are keen to understand student and industry experiences of workplace learning in order to work towards improving these important activities. It is expected that this study will lead to recommendations on how to improve student engineer engagement with professional practice for both students and industry.
access the industry survey here
The industry survey will close at 11.59pm, Thursday 31st March 2022
What else are we doing in this space?
Student Practicum Guide
An important foundation in the development of young engineers is the engagement with authentic, real-world engineering practice during their tertiary studies. The development of the Student Practicum Guide aims to provide industry with the information needed to take on interns and promote the benefits of running internship programs. In turn we hope this will help to create a larger number of available internships for student engineers.
Access the student practicum guide here
In addition to engaging with Industry, we also engaged with student and graduate engineers via a survey.
Student and Graduate Engineers Survey
Conducted between 29th September & 24th October 2021
Responses received: 777
Initial findings
- 587 respondents (76.3%) indicated they were domestic students and 176 (22.9%) indicated they were international students.
- 613 respondents (78.9%) ticked yes when asked if they were required to complete a compulsory engineering practice component as part of engineering course?
- When asked what engineering course they were studying:
- 393 respondents (50.6%) are completing or have completed a Bachelor of Engineering
- 126 respondents (16.2%) are completing or have completed a combined/double Bachelor of Engineering and one other.
- 115 respondents (14.8%) are completing or have completed a Master of Engineering
