Mechanical engineers and professional skills: generic skills and soft skills model studied

Abstract

Professional Skills is a basic component to the production of labor. Hence, through this study, two models have been identified namely Generic Skills Model and Soft Skills Model. It is used throughout the study to see the extent of its needs in producing competitive Mechanical Engineers. The objectives of this study are studying the level of need for Generic Skill elements in producing Mechanical Engineers, studying the level of need for the Soft Skills element in producing Mechanical Engineers and see the significant relationship between the elements of Generic Skills and Soft Skills. The data obtained was processed using the XL-Stat 2014 software for Discriminant Analysis (DA) to answer the research questions. This study involved 300 respondents from industrial areas in Peninsular Malaysia.

Keywords: mechanical engineers; professional skills; generic skills; soft skills; discriminant analysis