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Irrespective of the branch of study, practical/laboratory courses are integral parts of engineering curriculum. These courses develop the knowledge, skill and attitude of the graduates. It is thus necessary to frame the laboratory experiments, to create a student centric learning environment and to have suitable assessment methodologies to enhance the cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills of the engineering students. This paper proposes a framework of the above three from the authors' perspective for a software laboratory. The proposed framework can be extended to the laboratory/practical with suitable modifications in the Course Outcomes. Also in this paper, a methodology is proposed for converting the scales into marks and also the formula for calculating the marks under various heads (record, viva voce and experiment) is given. Rubrics are defined for the Performance Indicators (PIs) as specified in the Examination Reform Policy of AICTE for the Program Outcomes (POs defined by National Board of Accreditation (NBA), India). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology and the availability of information have shifted the focus of researchers of engineering education towards experiential learning, a three-dimensional learning approach for students' engagement and development. The MIT report on The Global State of the Art in engineering education also shows the importance of experiential learning as a pedagogical tool for engineering education. Many researchers have discussed how this pedagogical tool is used to develop various skills like leadership, decision-making, teamwork etc. However, how experiential learning is mapped with learning outcomes and strategy for their assessment is yet not developed and discussed in depth. This research paper discusses the learning of students while working on the project undertaken under Mission Amrit Sarovar- Jal Dharohar Sanrakshan-2022 as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav initiative by the Government of India to rejuvenate ponds, advocating sustainability, and enhancement of analytical skills. The paper also discusses how effectively various learning aspects and understanding of all participating students would be mapped with required skill sets. The survey instrument has captured the detailed response to do an analysis of learning and later on, that has been mapped with required skill sets. Moreover, activities were designed with a perspective to provide experiential learning for students to engage with relevant officials, enhancing their communication and presentation skills. This also facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration in addressing environmental challenges and conserving valuable natural resources. The findings provide a direction for field-academic scenarios with practical knowledge and foster students' ability to contribute to real-world problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: With changing employment conditions, technological advancement, frequent manpower reduction and global competition, the relevance of the protean and boundaryless career concepts is increasing. With this, the country's culture plays a pivotal role in career choice. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate protean and boundaryless career scales for college passing out students and in the Indian context. The protean career scale was measured by self-directed and values-driven dimensions, while the boundaryless career scale was measured by boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference. Design/methodology/approach: The first step involved defining construct and determining face validity. The data collected via questionnaire from India's final year engineering students were subjected to exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis in the second and third steps, respectively. Finally, the nomological validity was tested by establishing the relationship between factors influencing career choice and newly developed protean and boundaryless career. Findings: The result suggested using a two-factor model with a protean career (combining self-directed and values-driven items) and a boundaryless career as a separate construct for college passing out students. Research limitations/implications: The developed scale has nine items that can be used to conduct surveys at the time of campus hiring by academic scholars, HR managers, and practitioners who are working on the identification, development and management of human talent as a part of any human resource management system. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first approach to developing the protean and boundaryless career scale for college passing out students and in the Indian context which can be replicable for South Asian countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the journey of engineering education to flourish the India's economic growth. To know the role of engineering education towards the contribution of nation's economic growth, the meaning of true engineering education must be understood. The engineering student's life includes three phases in his/her education journey; i) education, ii) employment and iii) society welfare. At the world level, engineering education is the most preferred career option. At present India produces 15 lakh engineers for 1 trillion economies whereas United State (US) produces 1 lakh engineers for 16 trillion economies. The difference is the engineers of US is skill oriented from day one while India's engineers are not industry ready due to lack of skill and required 6 month or 1 year training after the course completion. So, the quantity and quality of engineers produced by India is not adequate to keep the pace with the world. In the new world technologies changes very fast so as engineering education from 1.0 to 4.0 and now education 5.0 more focuses on rehumanizing approaches with machine and technologies. The paper also emphasis different era of industry, society, education revolution with respect to engineering education to compete with globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting a research mindset among undergraduate students is crucial to fostering a culture of inquiry, critical thinking, and innovation. HEI's impetus on research at undergraduate levels has garnered increased attention in recent years across the country. For India to make a mark in research, especially in publication at an international level, HEIs must recognize the value of a research-oriented curriculum. The paper attempts to study the effect of undergraduate research experience and institutional support among engineers on research mindset and the impact of research mindset on career aspirations in research. The study followed a descriptive & relational research design. With a theoretical background of expectancy-value theory, four study variables were identified through literature: Undergraduate Research Experience (URE), Institutional Support, Research Mindset, and Career Aspirations in Research. Final and Prefinal year engineering students from tier 1 and tier 2 engineering institutions were the target respondents. Validated scales were adopted and used to collect data. The hypothetical model was formulated and tested with three direct effect hypotheses and indirect effects. Structural equation modelling (covariance-based method) was administered to prove the theoretical framework. Opensource GUI Software, Jamovi, was used for this purpose. The test results indicate a positive impact of URE and Institutional support on research mindset, and research mindset has a positive impact on career aspirations in research among engineers. Suitable suggestions and recommendations follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper chronicles the implementation of the Engineering Project in Community Service (EPICS) course within a curriculum, highlighting its journey of evolution from a Non Mandatory Course -- Mandatory Course -- Credit course for engineering students. The EPICS program was introduced in 2016 by one of the affiliated colleges in India, started this initiative to overcome employability issues, and for developing leadership skills, team work, problem solving skills in students. The goal was to inspire students to actively engage in real-time, community-oriented projects, shifting their focus from theoretical concepts to practical application. This change aimed at addressing employability concerns in India by fostering a more hands-on and service-oriented approach to engineering education. Studies the implementation of EPICS in engineering education effectively to address employability issues in India while enhancing students' technology-based learning and other skills, analyses academic performance of student whether increased after introducing the EPICS program? The EPICS program follows a comprehensive Design Thinking process, which involves identifying real-time problems, developing ideas, generating creative solutions, prototyping, designing, seeking feedback, and ultimately delivering and maintaining the outcomes. As of now, the program has successfully completed its eighth iteration. In the first iteration, EPICS was introduced as a non-mandatory course, offering an opportunity for interested students from various disciplines to participate by registering in the course voluntarily. The EPICS program, spanning four years of engineering education, has yielded positive outcomes for its students. An analysis of the program's impact reveals that 60% of students secured placements in reputed companies, 35% pursued higher studies, and 5% ventured into their own startups. Throughout the iterations, the program has actively collected reflections from students and alumni, as well as valuable feedback from parents and industry experts. Based on the insights gathered, the course structure and delivery have undergone significant changes from the initial iteration to the current one. These refinements aim at enhancing the effectiveness of the program, ensuring a more enriching and impactful learning experience for the participating students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conspicuous transition in the employment sector has entailed employers to expect employees with pragmatic, autonomous, and dynamic skill sets. However, the engineers in India have been under-trained with the requisite skill set to exhibit constructive outcomes in the present competitive world. This paper expounds on the predominance of Life and Career skills in capacity building of engineering students with adequate skills to sustain the transforming 21st-century workplace demands. On this account, the paper examines the perceptions of students and teachers on integrating Life and Career skills in the English syllabus of Engineering curriculum for the workplace preparedness of the students. An online survey was conducted between July and August 2019 to obtain the perceptions of 1048 students of engineering and 34 teachers of English from the Engineering Institutes affiliated with Pondicherry University. The findings have exhibited the assertion on the efficacy of Life and Career skills in empowering engineering students with flexibility, self-direction, cross-cultural, productivity, etc., skills. The results imply the desideratum of these skills set in the engineering curriculum for Industry-ready students to meet the demands of the 21st-century workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outcome-based professional education processes are a new standard for all stakeholders and knowledge economy. Majority of the time the IT services/consulting industry demands graduates who shall be billable from day one of joining the enterprise. According to the National Employability Report Engineers 2019, only 3% of engineers possess new-age skills in areas such as AI, data analytics and mobile technologies. Academic project works shall be seen in the light of aforesaid observations and therefore suggests treating this as an opportunity to initiate undergraduates to more hands-on experiential learning considering the advancements in technology and market need. The objective of this paper is to identify the gap between the needs of the market/job trends and undergraduate CS/IT student projects areas. The second objective is to identify the factors affecting the project selection process. Our empirical study in general spanning over seven Engineering Institutes in western Maharashtra. The statistical data is collected from a controlled group of 4000 students. The data consists of project topics completed by students in the last nine years (from the year 2011 to the year 2019). Two indicators are used to understand the IT market. First, Gartner strategic technologies present the worldwide trend of technologies. Second, student project areas are compared with job trends in India. The student's feedback on technology adoption theory presents the challenges in adoption of recent IT technologies in academic projects. 62% of students have reported unavailability of resources at the institute to encourage the adoption of the recent technologies. The student's perception about the adoption of recent technologies needs to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature available on the academic performance of students in higher education is sparse, particularly in India. Limited research exists that precisely examines the academic performance of engineering students and the factors that contribute to their success. Utilising primary survey data of2288 fourth-year engineering students in Delhi, this paper specifically examines how the academic performance (Measured by Cumulative Grade Point Average) of students from socially disadvantaged caste groups (SC/ST and OBC) varies in India and what factors determine this. In this context, the study revealed a considerable performance gap among engineering students of different social groups. Especially, the findings indicate a significant gender and caste disparity in academic performance in engineering education. Females exhibited about 16.5 per cent lower performance compared to males, and SC/ST students demonstrated around 38 per cent lower performance in comparison to their OBC counterparts. We find that various aspects of the socio-economic background and factors related to the educational environment such as the type of institution, scholarships, and past academic experiences, are significantly determining the academic performance of engineering graduates from socially backward caste groups. Given the poor linkage between engineering education and the labour market, the findings of the study have considerable policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of Bandura's (Social foundations of thought and action: a social cognitive perspective, Princeton-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1986) social cognitive theory (SCT), we investigated the roles of four different entrepreneurial factors: entrepreneurial qualities (EQ), entrepreneurial knowledge (EK), perceived entrepreneurialism (PE) and entrepreneurial inspiration (EIN), in entrepreneurial intention (EI) formation. Alongside, this paper explored the unique role played by entrepreneurial self-efficacy as a mediator among the list of determinants and EI. The study approached with a sample of 1062 final year engineering student from 15 premier technical institutes in India. The findings show that the effects of EQ, PE, and EIN on EI are partially mediated by entrepreneurial self-efficacy whereas a full mediation between EK and EI, which is consistent with the SCT framework. The implications suggest for improving the EK delivery system, which in turn will make students feel self-efficacious toward being entrepreneurial. The article argued on various pedagogical as well as the policy-related context of business venturing at Indian technical institutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact study conducted in a residential engineering university in rural India evaluated the effect of blended learning (BL) on the Engineering students' learning experience and effectiveness. Data collected through the post-course student survey and students' performance scores in the end-of-semester examination helped in understanding students' perceptions on blended learning and analysing blended learning effectiveness. Though the t-test results of achievement comparison between BL students and non-BL students' were mixed; the perceptions of students leaned in favour of blended learning. This paper presents the Engineering students' perceptions towards blended learning experience and effectiveness of their teachers' blended instructional practices and the correlation between students' blended learning satisfaction and achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper discusses the strategies to develop the communication competence of the students through face-to-face conversation. It has taken up the case of Birla Institute of Technology and Science, one of the premier institutes in India, and has limited itself to the course on Business Communication offered to the students of engineering and sciences as an elective. It discusses an approach to teaching a significant communication component of face-to-face conversation and the skills acquired by the students during such situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss students' assessment of quality related issues in engineering education in India. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses primary survey data of 1,178 undergraduate engineering students in Delhi, India, in 2009-2010. Students' experience and views of four important aspects such as teaching methods used in the classroom, evaluation pattern, skills acquired by students during the course and the involvement of students in different activities other than classroom teaching are discussed using descriptive statistics and correlation to examine the quality issues. Findings: The study finds that the lecture method is still dominant in the teaching and learning of engineering institutions compared to technical demonstration and laboratory work. Around half of the engineering students reported that they had never gone through any field work or industrial visits during their entire program of study. Involvement of students in the activities other than classroom teaching (e.g. working on research projects, attending engineering internships, studying a foreign language and opting for interdisciplinary courses) is more prevalent in government institutions compared to private institutions. The findings suggest that engineering institutions (particularly private colleges) should change their focus from traditional methods of teaching and evaluation of students to interactive methods of learning to improve the quality of technical education in India. Originality/value: The literature reveals that the quality assessment of engineering and technical education in India is largely based on the information collected from stakeholders other than students. Therefore, this study contributes a new dimension to the existing literature by considering students' assessment of the quality of engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian IT industry has a major footprint globally and is contributing substantially to Indian economy. To cope up with the global challenge of skill and capacity availability, Indian IT industry is looking up for "ready-to-deploy" skills. Due to growing competition, there is huge cost pressure on the IT industry and hence industry is largely dependent on graduate / post graduate fresher talent. To achieve this, there is large dependency on how industry and academics are connected to work jointly to meet the goal of onboarding "ready-to-deploy" talent. Industry needs to work closely with academics by means of spelling out the skills which they expect from fresher talent as well as work with academics to share their practical knowledge and experience. As per UGC data as of February 2017, India had 789 universities, 37,204 colleges and 11,443 stand-alone institutions which is highest in the world in terms of number of education institutes. Survey conducted by NASSCOM in 2011 showcased that 75% of IT graduates are not employed. Considering the issue faced by todays engineering fresher, this paper aims at highlighting current and future initiatives to bridge the gaps between academics and industry by means of research and development driving governance of academics with special focus on engineering colleges, developing centre of excellence which will help academicians to cope up with changing needs of the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between campus and industry among the management and engineering students to enhance their employability. It equips students and faculty with creative tools and techniques to acquire soft skills and provides a new perspective to the discipline of soft skills. Design/methodology/approach – The paper designs an interview questionnaire containing both open and close-ended questions to elicit responses from faculty, students, recruiters, and directors of educational institutions. Findings – The study found that there must be effective coordination among faculty, students, industry and directors of educational institutions for enhancing employability skills among students. It places emphasis on the role of Training and Placement Officer (TPO) in the educational institutions for better employability and calls for promotion of finishing schools to enhance employability. Research limitations/implications – The article relies on limited survey and interview data from one particular district in India and from students of engineering and management education only. Practical implications – The study can be applied in any part of the world as there is a problem of unemployability everywhere currently. Originality/value – The paper adds value to the little literature available in the area of soft skills. It sets the agenda for discussion in soft and hard skills and employability, presents problems and prospects and calls for blending both hard and soft skills to enhance employability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During and after the Covid-19-induced lockdown, online teaching has attained an unprecedented status like never before all over the world. Teachers and students have been compelled to fall in line with the new normal of virtual classrooms. Even though many teachers and students have expressed their inconvenience of virtual classrooms, it has become mandatory to adapt their teaching and learning styles to cope with the exasperating times triggered by the coronavirus. The survey presented in this paper was conducted among second and third-year engineering students of a private university in India just before the Covid-19 outbreak. The objective of the survey was to understand which method is more suitable for learning English skills for the engineering students. The students' attitude and perception toward online and teacher-led sessions have been unveiled through qualitative and quantitative data. The participants have weighed the pros and cons of both the methods according to their specific needs, and the results suggest that in order to have a balanced teaching-learning process, the students require both the methods. It has been identified that students' needs play a major role while choosing between online or teacher-led sessions. Though the modern generation relies more on technology, teacher-led sessions have not lost the sheen and are considered an effective way of learning due to various factors such as human interaction, direct guidance, and knowledge-sharing possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, nearly 1.5 million students enrol in engineering programs in around 4000 colleges. These students come from very diverse demographic, sociocultural and economic backgrounds. Many of them are unable to successfully transition from school to the very demanding environment of engineering education because of poor levels of academic and emotional preparedness. They become demotivated and disengaged which in turn, negatively impacts their academic performance. The objective of this study is to investigate the reasons for demotivation and recommend possible solutions. The study was conducted in three phases using multiple specially designed instruments. In the first phase, Instrument 1 was administered to 349 students to establish the diversity in engineering student population. Then, 79 students with low motivation and academic performance were identified using Instrument II. Personal interviews were conducted using Instrument III with the identified low-performing subjects to get an insight into their learning and emotional needs. Over an entire semester, well-planned interventions were provided to address the identified learning and emotional needs. At the end of the semester, academic performance of the 79 subjects was re-recorded. Due to sudden lockdown and transition to online instruction in the middle of the semester (because of COVID-19), separate data were collected for pre and post lock down periods. Results obtained showed remarkable progress in both pre and post lockdown periods. The paper concludes with a set of concrete recommendations for engineering institutions and faculty for effectively managing student motivation, building confidence and getting them ready for the highly competitive job market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender disparity in engineering enrolment is quite significant although there is only a very narrow gap in girls' enrollment in higher education in India. The overall enrolment of girls in engineering programs is 27.5%. By affirmative action of introducing supernumerary quota for girls, Ministry of Education targets to increase the enrolment of girls which was 8% and 14 % respectively in IITs and NITs in 2016-17 to 20% in 2020-21. Therefore, it is essential to explore the reasons behind the reluctance of girls in choosing engineering education, even when the nature of engineering jobs has evolved to be gender neutral. It is even more significant now when National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is targeting to achieve a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 50 % by 2035 from the current 27 %. This paper reviews the existing studies to understand the nature of influence of both external and internal factors and their interaction on the girls' choice of higher education. Literature review of the research articles for two decades was conducted. It includes both published and unpublished work on the subject. There are no studies conducted nationwide, post 2004 to address the reasons for disproportionate representation of girls in engineering education in India. It is found that the findings are contextual in nature with respect to culture of the society. In, particular, the influence of parental perception influences the association of gender with engineering studies, among the girls. Awareness and exposure of the nature of engineering jobs among parents and the girls can bring in the desired change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: This paper introduces the concept of Deep Breathing and its applications as one of the means towards stress management through regulation of blood pressure among Indian College Engineering students. The underlying concept of deep breathing is that the relation between emotions and breathing is twoway, i.e. not only do emotions affect the breathing, but controlled deep breathing also has an effect on emotions. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the paper is to find out whether deep breathing technique is able to control blood pressure, and in turn, the level of stress. METHODS: Sample students had a selection through initial screening and the students who reported high mental stress during interview were selected for the main drills. All the readings are taken using a sphygmomanometer (digital blood pressure meter). Students' t test are used for the purpose of hypothesis testing. RESULTS: The results indicated that the deep breathing technique provided significant results. CONCLUSION: It is recommended that this amazingly simple and yet highly effective ancient technique of deep breathing become part of students' routine curriculum. The paper aims at spreading the awareness of this yogic technique as one of the modes of Stress Management amongst Indian college students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every Individual who go through professional programmes like Engineering, Medicine, Management will have to face not only cognitive challenges but non-cognitive too. In India apart from higher secondary school (HSC) exam. score; there are various entrance examination that respective students have to clear with adequate ranks before being admitted into any prestigious institution like IITs (Indian Institute of Technology), NIT (National Institute of Technology) or high ranking Private Institutions. This filters assures respective spectrum of students being landed in respective programmes of respective institution which indirectly means all the students in respective programmes are at par with respect to their cognitive skills but when we analyse failure rate in first year engineering students and dropout rate; it is quite high and it is major point of concern in many universities. Even though, these students in given batch are more or less in narrow band of marks variation in terms of entrance examination scores or HSC score; the question remain as why the failure rate in first year is high? It leads to investigation as; it is not only cognitive abilities but non-cognitive skills of individuals which contribute in the student's success in first year. This paper is systematic study and development of machine learning based classifier for early detection of academically poor performer in a batch which can be identified and counselled to improve the failure rate in first year of engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of the contextual antecedents on the individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) of university graduates, which, in turn, affects their entrepreneurial intentions (EIs). Design/methodology/approach: Primary data were collected in the form of 510 valid responses from engineering students across two technical universities in India, through a structured questionnaire consisting of scales adapted from the extant literature, and the data were empirically validated in this study. The reliability and validity measures of the constructs were validated through the confirmatory factor analysis, and the proposed hypotheses were validated using structural equation modelling. Findings: The results of this empirical analysis validate that the contextual antecedents have a significant positive impact on students' entrepreneurial orientation (EO), which, in turn, has a significant positive influence on EIs. Research limitations/implications: This analysis depicts the significance of EO as a perceptual driver at the individual level and substantiates that the availability of resources such as startup capital, access to business information, social networks and supportive university context significantly affects the decision-making process of an individual to venture into an otherwise uncertain occupation of entrepreneurship. Practical implications: The study has the likely potential to help university administrators and policymakers to allocate resources, develop strategies and provide effective entrepreneurial learning in entrepreneurship-oriented courses aimed at honing entrepreneurial skills and self-confidence of the university students. This holistic model can be used as a tool for resource planning and prioritising in order to provide the desired contextual support essential for fostering the IEO of the university students towards adopting entrepreneurial career, thereby assisting them to achieve their career goals and the broader objective of nation-building. Originality/value: This study adopts an innovative approach to empirically validate the EO construct at the individual level, which has been studied at the organisation (firm) level till today. This research explores the relevant contextual antecedents and analyses their impact on IEO as well as the explanatory capacity of IEO to explain students' EIs in the contextual backdrop of universities in a fast transitioning economy like India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to primarily emphasize on improvement of student's academic excellence through devising and implementing a competent Internal Assessment Criteria that indirectly improves their results and passing rates in exams. Design/methodology/approach -- In present system, Internal Assessment Criteria has evolved as critical factor having lot of margin for bringing improvement in student's academics by redesigning or editing the existing one, appropriately. Assessment criteria are re-optimized by strategic implementation of well proved Six Sigma's DMAIC approach. Findings -- It is a one of rarely seen effort to transform Assessment Criteria by identifying the statistical relations between internal marks and external marks secured by students in an end semester university exams. The proposed framework and its validation through an Indian case study, ignites the application of this structured Six Sigma approach in higher education for necessary excellence. Research limitations/implications -- The whole work revolves around the Indian engineering environments, moreover the case has been restricted and elaborate facts for only unaided (private) engineering universities. Practical implications -- The paper can be utilized to stimulate thinking about the fine tuning of Assessment Criteria through proven Six Sigma methodology in current Indian academic settings and further safeguarding the interests of managements, students and society, simultaneously. Originality/value -- The formulation of upcoming challenges before Indian engineering system are outcome of intense literature survey. Focussing on always neglected "Assessment Criteria" and its re-optimization by statistical approach of Six Sigma is hard to found and has immense scope in future for reaching at desired academic hikes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that has benefited from the massification of computational devices, putting it in the focus of researchers as a novel teaching aid in engineering. For this very reason, a great amount of information about AR in engineering education is emerging constantly. To synthesize the information, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was carried out and 4 research questions were raised. It was found out the researcher´s trend for the development and testing of software that takes advantage of AR for engineering students. It was also found that Germany and India are the leading nations on investigations about the investigated topic. On the software side, Unity is the most used tool for creating applications and that the target hardware is smartphone. Finally, the high interest of researchers to increase motivation in students is evidenced in this SLR and recommendations were made based on the researcher’s findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) has been known for dragging huge attention of the students and their parents, who wish to opt for vocational Education. CBCS has always been a preferred choice over the conventional pattern of education. Rajiv Gandhi Technical University (RGTU), MP, Bhopal has also launched CBCS for the Engineering students from the session 2015-16 to foster better levels of understanding of the subjects, in turn producing better hands on training, practical exposure and high scoring theory systems. English language being the medium of teaching-learning process occupies a special consideration in CBCS and has been given 4 credits. This paper studies, analyzes and investigates the opportunities and challenges of English Language, having 4 credits, in CBCS in case of engineering students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to emphasize the necessity of incorporating soft skills training programs in ESP curriculum for Engineering English, aiding the workforce readiness of engineering graduates especially from the B schools. India is one of the fastest developing economies having a huge manpower resource but it is not being properly utilized owing to the lack of employability skills in the youth. The young generation is having sufficient qualification and an appreciable percentage of youth are getting good job opportunities also. But the category of students who are of average level employment, a good job is just a dream for them. Employers prefer to hire and promote those candidates who are resourceful, ethical and self-directed with good soft skills. Hard skills and experience are not sufficient for the sustainability and progress in the corporate world. In spite of such great significance of soft skills many institutions are reluctant to include soft skills training in the curriculum. The growth of technical education has escalated since the privatization of higher education in India. Almost all technical colleges attract students who meet the required eligibility criteria for enrolling in an engineering college, but unfortunately they are drastically deficient in soft skills and English language proficiency, which in turn makes these students unemployable, even after they complete their four years engineering degree course. The employability may be achieved by inculcating some skills, such as: Communication Skill development, Self-Management, Communications, Managing people and tasks, Mobilizing Innovation and Right Attitude. The paper recommends some models for teaching soft skills as an integral part of engineering curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth of engineering colleges in India is exponential. Owing to population explosion, technical institutions are bringing out large number of graduates in all faculties. This paper discusses the technical education scenario in Karnataka. With the data available from National Technical Manpower Information Systems (http://nodal.nitk.ac.in), polynomial regression models have been fit to assess the growth in number of institutions and also increase in intake and outturn. Noticeable number of dropouts and detainees are observed over the years. The comparative review on employment patterns, size of unemployment, and excess supply over demand for two successive years emphasizes the need and importance of entrepreneurship education in technical institutions. Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belgaum has more than 140 technical institutions spread across the state of Karnataka. As a welcome move in this direction, the university has introduced a compulsory subject—Management and Entrepreneurship—for all branches of engineering in the pre-final year. Continuous student research as a soil testing exercise, well-planned training program as sowing the right seed, along with conducive innovation ecosystem reap rich harvest in entrepreneurship culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are among the most prestigious technical institutes in India (and perhaps in the world) for undergraduate engineering education. Admission to an IIT is viewed by many Indians as a passport to success, prosperity, prestige, and possibly moving to Western countries for higher studies and/or jobs. This paper examines whether (i) access to the IITs is open to students irrespective of their socioeconomic status; (ii) students’ satisfaction, once they enter an IIT, is conditioned by their socioeconomic status; and (iii) students’ attitudes towards their future plans are influenced by their socioeconomic status. The paper is based on a survey conducted with nearly 260 students at two out of five original IITs in 2007–2008. Findings reveal that access to the IITs, satisfaction at the IITs, and future plans after the IITs are strongly correlated to students’ socioeconomic status. Even though admission to the IITs is based on an entrance examination, most of its students are from the socially and economically well-off families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What determines academic performance? Multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) technique is an adaptive non-parametric regression approach which has been used for various forecasting and data mining applications in recent years. MARS is flexible regression technique that uses a modified recursive partitioning strategy to simplify high dimensional problems into smaller yet highly accurate models. This technique is more useful when a large number of explanatory variable candidates need to be considered. In this paper, the MARS technique is applied to predict the student performance in the entrance examination in the engineering admission in ANNA UNIVERSITY, INDIA. The study has implications for the Engineering's admission policy. The results should help us to identify an optimal set of admission indicators, which have the potential of predicting students' performance. And also the effectiveness of MARS is demonstrated on a data set taken from literature. Its performance is compared with that of multiple linear regressions (MLR) in terms of normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) obtained on test data. Based on the experiments performed, it is observed that the MARS outperformed with MLR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the design and construction of the longest rope-stayed newspaper foot-bridge by participants in the annual technical festival at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India. Characterization of the material used by the students; Conceptual design of the newspaper foot-bridge; Details on rope properties.

The growth of the Indian IT industry has been of great interest to the international IT community. Nearly one third of fresh Indian engineering graduates are currently joining the IT industry irrespective of their specialization. The success of the Indian IT industry, however, has not been yet been leveraged for developing India as a preferred destination for engineering education, even in the disciplines related to information technology. Internationally, reforms in engineering education have a long but slow history. Last decade saw an increasing recognition of the need for the transformation of engineering education. Many accreditation agencies have even transformed their accreditation criteria in the last few years from a resource-based approach to an outcome-based approach. This paper collates recommendations about core competencies for engineering graduates by NSF, National Academy of Engineers (NAE), Engineering Professor's Council (EPC), and authors like Felder, Bordogna, and others. It brings together the contemporary prescriptions of accreditation agencies in US, UK, Australia, Singapore, and Japan and also the recommendations made by ACM, IEEE, and other professional bodies with specific reference to various IT related disciplines. These accreditation agencies, NAE, IEEE, ACM, other professional agencies, and researchers have identified a number of core competencies as essential attributes of graduating engineers. There are great similarities in these recommendations that are now being increasingly used for enhancing the quality of engineering education. However, in order to further enhance the value of engineering education, it is proposed that ability to create wealth, self-sufficiency and a sense of well being through successful engineering enterprise, ability to assist others through philanthropic donation, and ability to work in multi-location teams may also be added to the list of recommended competencies, especially at the master's level. Based on Marzano's (1993) Dimensions of Learning, a three dimensional taxonomy of competencies has been proposed to categorize the recommended competencies along the three dimensions of attitudes and perceptions, productive habits of mind, and meaningful usage, extension, and acquisition of knowledge. This taxonomy is projected to have the flexibility to suit varying and emerging needs. The paper then presents current accreditation criteria practiced by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) of All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), the accreditation agency in India. The accreditation criterion of NBA continues to be based on the traditional resource-based approach. Recommendations by National Board of Accreditation (NASSCOM) and the Indian Government task force set up to examine the human resource challenge for IT and IT enabled Services (ITeS) sector have been briefly discussed. Both of these agencies have underrated some skills such as spoken English, creativity, and team working and have categorised them as desirable rather than necessary. The accreditation criteria of NBA and also some recommendations of NASSCOM and the Indian Government task force are not in alignment with the contemporary global perspectives on this issue. The Indian engineering education sector can tremendously help the Indian IT industry to make a much larger contribution in higher value-added markets. It needs to focus on competence building by transforming its traditional teaching, learning, and assessment processes. This focus will also help in leveraging Indian IT industry's success for developing India as a preferred destination for engineering education at least in selected disciplines related to information technology. Further, faculty's unfamiliarity and inexperience with real life engineering projects as well as research on learning also need urgent attention in order to meet these objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2018, decriminalizing consensual homosexuality through the scrapping of section 377 from the Indian Penal Code undoubtedly marked a milestone in India's history of the LGBTQ movement. However, one may debate whether this legal change reflects a transformation at the societal level in terms of positive attitudes towards homosexuality. The current study examines the effects of multiple anteceding factors (parents' education, acceptability of homosexuality among the friends, frequency of LGBTQ-related conversations within the family, having a friend from the LGBTQ community, having fandom to LGBTQ celebrity, religiosity, and just-world belief) in determining the attitudes towards homosexuality among engineering students. A survey-based quantitative study empirically tested the relationship between the variables. The result revealed a sex difference in attitude towards homosexuality, where female heterosexual engineering students have a significantly higher positive attitude towards homosexuality than male heterosexual students. Moreover, friends' acceptability of homosexuality, just-world belief, mother's education level, and having a fandom to LGBTQ celebrities significantly predict attitude towards homosexuality among the participants (p<.05). However, religiosity is not a significant predictor of students' attitudes towards homosexuality. Attitudes towards homosexuality, in turn, predict a person's reaction (positive/ negative/ neutral) to LGBTQ celebrities' coming-out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students in Hyderabad, India, explain the "freshmen's Composting Initiative", a project they undertook as a part of their environmental science course. The initiative puts a strong emphasis on problem-based learning (PBL) and real-world sustainability. It emphasizes the significance of giving pupils the knowledge and abilities necessary for environmental responsibility as well as the connection between human wellbeing and the natural world. The all-India Council for Technical Education's (AICTE) decision to include "Environmental Science" in the first-year B.Tech. Curriculum served as the impetus for the effort. Although sustainability is emphasized in policies, there is frequently a gap in actual application, which this research seeks to fill. This research helps students comprehend sustainable business practices and environmental issues while also giving them a foundation for putting sustainability into reality. It illustrates the transformative potential of PBL and the part that students play in bridging the sustainability gap between theory and practice. In conclusion, the "Freshmen's Composting Initiative" shows how first-year engineering students may actively support sustainability through practical projects, aligning with the increased emphasis on environmental education and the real-world application of sustainable ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary purpose of this work is to study the impact of motivational factors on the engineering educational result of students. Much of the current findings indicate that the major reason for poor time management is due to the lack of interest in the topic of study which in turn leads to procrastination. Following the several exemplary works of education specialists outside the Indian subcontinent, this paper attempts to study the motivational factors such as rewards, acknowledgment and supplemental resources against procrastination of engineering students in India. A hypothesis was constructed and tested in a reputed engineering university in South India. A survey was conducted at four notable engineering institutions in South India and the obtained result shows that 22% required a practical study approach for motivation, 18% wanted collaborative work and approximately 49% suggested the need for recognition in order to overcome procrastination. In conclusion, providing sufficient recognition was found to be one of the biggest motivational factors to reduce procrastination among engineering students and increase their interest in routine and technical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of employability of professional students has become very serious and critical in many countries including India. The biggest challenge facing institutions of technical education is to develop employable skills, enhance knowledge and make engineering students more attractive to employers. Though the standard of academia has been steadily moving ahead, the updating process of curriculum with respect to soft skills is not as fast as expected by the industries. Hence a framework is needed to develop creative and innovative ways to give the engineering students a competitive edge. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to develop a professional curriculum to enhance the employability of engineering students, especially identifying modules of soft skills with the perspective of the employers, placement professionals, corporate trainers and observations from the newspapers and job websites on job opportunities. The authors studied related research papers and held a series of discussions with the experts of soft skills. The findings and discussions suggest that (i) Engineering institutions should recognize the importance of soft skills, (ii) integrate important modules of soft skills in the engineering curriculum, (iii) integrate higher-order skills and (iv) interact more with employers of the region or sector to understand the particular demand for skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libraries of engineering institutions are prominent information organizations that play vital role in catering to the information needs of the respective institutions. Students of engineering subjects need to update their knowledge through latest information in their respective field of interest which enables them to support their academic needs. How the information needs and seeking behavior of the students' community is steered by the library professionals is indeed a big question. This paper intends to examine the overall information seeking behavior of students of school of computer engineering, KIIT University, India. The analysis reveals that students are absolutely satisfied with the loan of books (circulation) and internet service. However, respondents have a very poor opinion on reservation service and interlibrary loan. Moreover, the paper provides some constructive suggestions for the up-gradation systems and services of the university library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes on members' attitudes towards library facilities and information resources in some selected Engineering colleges in West Bengal. An attempt has been made in this study to know the frequency of library visit, to know the use of types of resources, to study the lending procedure of documents, to providing of Library Services etc. Questionnaires were distributed to some selected government and private engineering colleges in the West Bengal. INSET: 0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to identify predictors of employability of undergraduate engineering students in campus recruitment drives of Indian software services companies. Data with respect to the academic background of 559 engineering graduates from a reputed engineering college in South India along with their performance in various non-technical training were analyzed vis-à-vis their performance in the campus recruitment drives of major Information Technology companies in India. Correlation and multiple regressions were performed to test hypotheses. It was observed in this study that knowledge of engineering (GPA) and proficiency in English language are important predictors of continuous employability of engineering graduates in campus interviews of software services companies. It was also found that unlike in other core engineering sectors, female students are better performers than their male counterparts in campus recruitments in software services industry. Outcome of this study would be of greater relevance to college management, Training & Development professionals, recruiters as well as the student fraternity in developing those skills that are required to enhance employability of fresh graduates in software services industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having found that Engineering students struggle in striking a balance between knowledge (tacit) and use (Hymes, 1971)as far as conveying technical information in second language (L[sub 2]) is concerned, this paper will suggest situational speaking tasks to develop specific language and strategic competence in classroom environment. There is a gap between knowing and executing in language for expression. Language ability is judged based on sound language knowledge and strategic competence of the learner. Despite having enough knowledge, most of the learners fail to communicate effectively in second language. The paper reports a study in which 34 Engineering students, in two groups, were made to undergo language activities based on concrete needs analysis. Results revealed that there was a significant difference between the two groups with students in the experimental group outperforming those in the control group on both specific speaking and writing tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to examine the associations between the entrepreneurially inclined and entrepreneurial characteristics. In so doing, the study attempts to distinguish between those who are entrepreneurially inclined and those who are not on the basis of psychological entrepreneurial characteristics. This study was conducted on a sample of the final B.Tech engineering students in India. Correlation and regression analysis were conducted. The results showed that those who are entrepreneurially inclined have greater tolerance for ambiguity and higher propensity to take risk and the variable entrepreneurially inclined has significantly associated with psychological entrepreneurial characters, risk and tolerance for ambiguity. The result adequately distinguished between those who are entrepreneurially inclined and those who are not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the results of the initial phase of a long-term study undertaken to identify some of the factors that contribute to 'good teaching' in the realm of higher education in engineering in India. Feedback from both students and teachers in an engineering institution in India points to the fact that 'good teaching' ­consists of much more than the lucid imparting of content matter. The analysis of these judgements has been carried out concentrating on those qualities which are possessed by good or excellent teachers, but especially on those which are more commonly possessed by excellent than by good teachers. Excellence seems to transcend the boundaries of expounding subject matter, as in European research into the same topic, to include invoking interest, promoting analytical thinking, motivating and inspiring students. It is expected that in subsequent ­studies, the criteria will emerge more clearly. If so, then this will provide a basis to promote and even inculcate these qualities in teachers to a greater extent and on a wider basis than at present, thereby improving the quality of teaching in engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology has become an inevitable part of learning these days and the popularity of blogs and web forums is increasing exponentially. The purpose of blogging is to encourage discussions on a particular topic or concept, thereby throwing more light on the point of discussion. These discussions generally focus on knowledge sharing and acquiring, but in a way, they help the participants and the readers to enhance their language skills like listening, reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary both directly and indirectly. The present study consolidates the opinions of the researcher about the use of blogs as educational technology and the opinions of the learners about the role of blogs in their language learning aspects. The result shows that blogs have a considerable impact on one’s language proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is the second largest country in the world in terms of population and thus a considerable market for potential future robot applications as well as a location for manufacturing and production. While work has started to explore attitudes towards robots, very little is known about the perceptions of robots in India, particularly of political leaders who have the ability to effect rapid change. The present study administered the 30-item Frankenstein Syndrome Questionnaire to 31 Lok Sabha (Lower House) and Rajya Sabah (Upper House) members of the Indian Parliament (MPs) as well as doctors (n = 94), medical students (n = 493), and engineering students (n = 1104) for comparative purposes. Because no information had been available about the psychometric properties of the scale for use in India, a prior Rasch analysis explored the suitability of the commonly used five-factor model. The five subscales did not possess sufficient reliability, and a more psychometrically robust 26-item two-factor model (positive and negative attitudes) was utilized instead. The results revealed a higher degree of positive attitudes in MPs and doctors as compared to the two student groups. Negative attitudes, on the other hand, were strongest in doctors, followed by students. MPs had significantly less negative views compared to all other comparison groups. This study provides valuable insights into attitudes towards robots in India. In general, MPs appear to have more favourable views than comparison groups in India. A slightly shorter and more parsimonious version of the Frankenstein Syndrome Questionnaire has now also been proposed, with improved psychometric properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This quasi-experimental study presents the integration of cooperative learning pedagogy with the tasks of the engineering design process at a first-year interdisciplinary design course for undergraduate engineering students at a private engineering university in India. With a sample of 118 students, 59 each in the experimental group and control group, the integration presented as four interventions were tested for their effectiveness in two aspects: performance in the three tasks of the engineering design process: problem definition, concept generation and detailed design, and satisfaction with team interpersonal processes and, individual wellbeing and learning. The performance was measured using rubrics-based assessment, and satisfaction was measured using two subscales of a team diagnostic survey after demonstrating its validity and reliability. Results revealed significant differences in performance between the two groups with large to medium effect sizes. While cooperative learning brings members together at a level that increases interdependencies, often leading to arguments and conflicts, the proposed interventions yielded contrary results. Despite increased interdependence, the interventions did not lead to statistically significant between-group differences in team interpersonal processes and individual wellbeing and learning. Thus, this study has important implications for how engineering educators structure interdependencies between students in courses focusing on design problem-solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A huge increase in engineering graduates from the BRIC countries in recent decades potentially threatens the competitiveness of developed countries in producing high value-added products and services, while also holding great promise for substantially increasing the level of global basic and applied innovation. The key question is whether the quality of these new BRIC engineers will be high enough to actualize this potential. The objective of our study is to assess the evolving capacity of BRIC higher education systems to produce qualified engineering graduates. To meet this objective, we compare developments in the quality of undergraduate engineering programs across elite and non-elite higher education tiers within and across each BRIC country. To assess and compare the quality of engineering education across the BRIC countries, we use multiple sources of primary and secondary data gathered from each BRIC country from 2008 to 2011. In combination with this, we utilize a production function approach that focuses on key input-, process- and outcome-based indicators associated with the quality of education programs. Our analysis suggests that in all four countries, a minority of engineering students receives high quality training in elite institutions while the majority of students receive low quality training in non-elite institutions. Our analysis also shows how the BRIC countries vary in their capacity to improve the quality of engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the globalized world, English is known as the International language. The engineering professionals have to possess good communication skills to be successful in their career. Communication skills have become one of the employability skills in current scenario. The communication skills of today's engineering professionals are considered to be in the beginner level (in Tamilnadu, India) in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) that is to test the ability of individual's language proficiency. This may be due to the lack of interest in enriching the listening and speaking skills. This study focuses on enhancing the standard of the communication skills by improving the listening and speaking skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy of economic liberalization pursued by India over the last two decades has attracted global players and intensified competition in the Indian market. To compete effectively in this scenario, Indian companies need to address competency gaps quickly. The rapid growth of Information Technology and IT enabled service sectors has spurred growth in engineering education, without the requisite improvements in governance, infrastructure and quality of faculty. Most students gravitate to studying engineering under parental or peer pressure rather than genuine aptitude, consequently their academic and subsequent careers surfer. Research shows that if aspirations are aligned to innate ability with greater engagement in learning new knowledge and skills, the student's potential and performance improves. This paper presents a study in which students were assessed for their innate ability and assigned appropriate roles and counselled to articulate their aspiration in terms of life and career goals. They were then subjected to competency based education in collaboration with engineering institutions. Interim assessments indicate that students who took part in the collaborative program performed significantly better and demonstrated greater industry and role readiness than the rest of the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]