Resumen de Final year project: students’ and instructors’ perceptions as a competence-strengthening tool for engineering students
Isabel Ortiz-Marcos, Ángel Uruburu Colsa, Susana Ortiz, Raquel Caro
This work indicates the importance of the Final Year Project (FYP) in the strengthening of competences of engineering students.The study also shows which personal competencesof students are reinforced most during the FYP process, including the preparation, elaboration, presentation and defence stages. Inorder to gather information on this subject, a survey was conducted at two different Spanish technical universities—one public andone private—and a comparative analysis was performed of the questionnaires collected. The competence model considered is thatused by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), since the official title of the public university has beenaccredited by this model.The results indicate which personal and professionalcompetences of students are reinforced well by undertaking the FYP. Any significant differences in response by university areexplained in the study. For validation purposes, the results were contrasted with the instructor’s perspective using the triangulationmethodology.Finally, the conclusions drawn will permit the design of new study plans to cope more effectively with the challenges of the FYPin the new Bologna framework.
