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This paper presents a sustainable work readiness framework for engineering students, incorporating core skills, personal skills, and self-efficacy as mediating variables. The study aims to investigate the impact of core skills and personal skills on engineering students' work readiness, as well as the mediating influence of self-efficacy on this relationship. The researchers designed and tested a work readiness framework with three focal points: skills, personal skills, and self-efficacy, and their influence on engineering students' work readiness. The findings indicate that core skills, personal skills, and self-efficacy positively and significantly influence engineering students' work readiness. Self-efficacy can be explained by the core skills and personal skills variables at 87.8%, while the work readiness variable can be explained by core skills, personal skills, and self-efficacy at 85.4%. This study contributes to the existing literature by proposing a sustainable work readiness framework and measurement instrument that link core skills, personal skills, and self-efficacy as mediating variables influencing work readiness. The results are beneficial not only to Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia, as they directly reflect the work readiness of UTP's final-year undergraduate engineering students but also to individuals, universities, teaching staff, organizations, human resource specialists, and public administrators. They can use these findings to enhance the development of individual work readiness skills and increase the work readiness of students in their respective universities. The novelty of this study lies in proposing a sustainable work readiness framework tailored to equip engineering students with the skills required and acquired in Industry 4.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineers of the future must be capable of working successfully in multidisciplinary teams. Consequently, to advance innovative endeavours, engineering education and training should be considered in economic policies. The purpose of this study was to determine the significance of differences in innovation capabilities between engineering and non-engineering students. The research design is quantitative, using a questionnaire as the research instrument. The population were undergraduate students at a Malaysian university. Only 223 out of 370 respondents provided feedback within two weeks of data collection. 117 were non-engineering students, and the other 106 were engineering students. To measure the differences between the two groups of students, an inferential t-test was used. The Rasch analysis approach was applied to analyse the profiles of the students. The results showed that the innovation level of engineering students was greater than that of non-engineering students. Nonengineering students demonstrate marginally more (n=105, 47.09%) than engineering students (n=99, 44.39%) in "Very High Levels" of innovation. As a result, engineering education has grown and increased demand to efficiently train a diverse group of engineers for these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to examine the impacts of education for sustainable development subject(s) offered at University A, Japan and University B, Malaysia on the attitude and perception toward environment, social and economic issues of sustainability among the engineering undergraduates of the institutions from different countries. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire survey was administered to 108 engineering students at University A, Japan and 117 engineering students at University B, Malaysia to measure their attitudes and perceptions toward sustainability. Findings: The findings suggested that the sustainable development courses offered at University A, Japan, have developed positive attitudes and perceptions on environmental and social sustainability issues. The subjects on sustainable development offered at University B, Malaysia have developed positive attitudes and perceptions on the environmental issues of sustainability. Respondents from both universities, Japan and Malaysia, have not properly developed positive attitudes and perceptions toward economic sustainability issues. The findings also revealed that geographical boundaries have no influence toward the development of the attitude and perception toward sustainability issues. Originality/value: This study provides insight into the attitude and perception toward the three pillars – environment, social and economic – of sustainability among engineering undergraduates from two different institutions of two different countries that apply different pedagogic strategies in education for sustainable development in educating undergraduates on sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this globalization-focused era, the demand for globalized engineers in the creation of borderless societies is increasing. Despite the initiatives by the Japanese government to promote internalization through increasing the intake of foreign students, the exposures gained by the Japanese students from these programs are minimal. For years, internship has been used globally as a platform for training and educating future engineers, but only a few studies have examined the proactive transformation from domestic to international internship. International internships overseas offer a completely new dimension of experiences when carried out in multicultural environments. This article reports and offers evidence of a Japanese engineering university's rapid global internship reform strategy toward the expansion of international internships in Malaysia. This paper provides insights into the process, from initial setup to implementation of the internship program covering all the necessary preparation and support. From the establishment of an overseas collaboration base and rapport building with hosting industries, the systematic steps taken are reported. Regarding the internship program, feedback from Japanese engineering students who completed their internships show improved satisfaction due to continuous improvement of the internship program with progressing years. It was also discovered that the low participation rate in overseas internship by Japanese students is not due to their inward-looking temperament, but due to the lack of internship program availability that is administered with sufficient preparation enabling them to challenge themselves in a new environment. The challenges encountered in the program, and the sustainable improvements made in alignment with sustainable development goals toward equitable quality education and promotion of lifelong learning are also stated. In this paper, the future perspectives and outlook of internships are also described considering today's rapid technological advancements and the fast-changing needs of industries, which require future internship programs to have flexible approaches and ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sea change has occurred in global water management over the last two decades as previously unconventional technologies such as reverse osmosis membranes have been integrated into national supply networks. State‐led, highly politicised programmes of water resources development, characterised by large‐scale hydraulic infrastructure, centralised monopoly control and diplomatic negotiations, have been transformed in many regions by integrated systems supported by private engineering companies, constituting a new "technopolitical regime." Desalination in particular has become an expedient solution not only to the chronic problem of water scarcity but protracted geopolitical disputes over shared infrastructure. Engaging with literature on geopolitical materialism, technopolitics and the hydraulic state, this paper will examine how desalination has been developed in Singapore to depoliticise the water supply network, bringing into relation a different constellation of actors and enabling an alternative form of techno‐diplomacy. In the 1990s, imported water from Malaysia became increasingly vulnerable due to a worsening of diplomatic relations, therefore Singapore began to leverage on reverse osmosis to circumvent antagonistic, politically charged negotiations. The water authority was subsequently plugged into global industry networks, technologically and institutionally reconfiguring the state through integrated management, corporate intermediaries and strategic nodality. By 2060, reverse osmosis technology is expected to provide 85% of water supply, co‐producing, it is argued, an alternative state ontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimating from the steady declining rate of engineering students in Malaysia, the country is predicted to be short of 236,000 engineers and technical personnel to achieve its 2020 Mission. Hence, it has built the first technical MARA Junior Science College that introduced engineering to lower secondary students. However, there is yet a study on whether or not it helps the students to increase their interests in engineering. Therefore, in this paper, a survey has been conducted to first and foremost investigate the technical students' interests in engineering as well as finding out the reasoning from those who are not interested in engineering. After that, a half day engineering program is introduced with a measurement on the interest in engineering before and after the intervention is held. Finally, the survey studies which field of engineering the students are most interested in. The results show that, before the program is introduced, only 8.47% of the technical students have shown high interests in engineering field with only 7.5% female students are interested in engineering compared to 18.42% for male students. After the program is introduced, as high as 33.05% students rated their interest in engineering field as 'most interested', with 39.47% in male students and 30% in female students. It proves that an engineering event is crucial in increasing students' interests in engineering. It also concludes that Electrical Engineering is the most favourite field of engineering with percentage score of 38.98%, while Electrical Power being the least. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimating from the steady declining rate of engineering students in Malaysia, the country is predicted to be short of 236,000 engineers and technical personnel to achieve its 2020 Mission. Hence, it has built the first technical MARA Junior Science College that introduced engineering to lower secondary students. However, there is yet a study on whether or not it helps the students to increase their interests in engineering. Therefore, in this paper, a survey has been conducted to first and foremost investigate the technical students' interests in engineering as well as finding out the reasoning from those who are not interested in engineering. After that, a half day engineering program is introduced with a measurement on the interest in engineering before and after the intervention is held. Finally, the survey studies which field of engineering the students are most interested in. The results show that, before the program is introduced, only 8.47% of the technical students have shown high interests in engineering field with only 7.5% female students are interested in engineering compared to 18.42% for male students. After the program is introduced, as high as 33.05% students rated their interest in engineering field as 'most interested', with 39.47% in male students and 30% in female students. It proves that an engineering event is crucial in increasing students' interests in engineering. It also concludes that Electrical Engineering is the most favourite field of engineering with percentage score of 38.98%, while Electrical Power being the least.

Lecture is a widely used teaching method in universities worldwide as an intellectual discourse for delivering new knowledge. The effectiveness of a lecture depends on the teaching tools used in facilitating the learning process. At the same time, course content plays an important role in determining the effectiveness of a teaching tool. The present paper reports a cross-sectional study on Engineering undergraduates' perception of whiteboard and PowerPoint lecturing in enriching their learning experience. Questionnaires were distributed to 67 Engineering undergraduates. Interviews were conducted with seven Engineering undergraduates and seven lecturers. The survey and interview data collected were subjected to quantitative and content-based analyses, respectively. The findings concluded that whiteboard and PowerPoint lecturing tools complement each other in technical courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this research is to verify the relevancy of knowledge and skills acquired by engineering graduates from university to automotive industry in Malaysia. Hence, this paper aims to identify to what extent the knowledge and skills acquired by the new engineers in the university have equipped them with job competency in the automotive industry. This study adopts a qualitative case study method to analyze and compare data collected from a private engineering college, a public university and an automotive manufacturing industry. The identified target groups are one human resource manager, six new engineering graduates, and 4 university lecturers. The findings of this study suggested that the stakeholders, university, students as well as industries are aware that it is not easy for new engineers to fit into industries right after graduation. The study emphasizes the important role of the stakeholders namely; university, new engineer and industry, to enhance the acquisition of knowledge and skills for better job competency of new engineers at the beginning of their career at industry. The results revealed certain attributes showing strong linkage between university education and job performance. In particular, students' attitude, interpersonal skills, lack of manufacturing knowledge, lecturers' industrial exposure, collaboration between university and industry, poor execution of internship, poor training needs analysis and incompetent coach at industry were among the attributes that have high influence on the ability of new engineers coping with the job challenges. The study has contributed to a better understanding of job competency and the challenges faced by new engineers at the chosen automotive industry.

This paper reports an analysis of publications of scholars affiliated in Malaysia in engineering subject. The study uses bibliometrics method which examines patterns of Malaysian authorship publications in engineering, publish from 2000 to 2010. 11,819 bibliographic records were gathered from Scopus database. The findings indicate Malaysian researchers have considerably enhanced their influence especially since the period of 2007 onwards. Most authors in this field are not one time contributors and 71 authors produced 30 or more papers each. Collaborative research activity has been a consistent trend towards increased collaboration in engineering. The main types of publication produced are conference papers and journal articles. 99.907% of the publications were written in English. This study indicates that Malaysian researchers have made significant contributions to global engineering study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is to discover whether lecturers' beliefs coincide with their practices in their daily teaching. The focus will be on the belief in the use of code-switching in the classroom. At the same time, it is also worthwhile to indicate whether there are differences in the beliefs between the lecturers and the students. For that purpose three lecturers from an engineering department of a polytechnic in a northern region as well as the students in the classrooms were chosen to participate in this research. The methods designed include classroom observations, questionnaires for both the lecturers and students, and interviews with the lecturers after the classroom observation. The findings showed that the lecturers mostly used reiteration and message qualification functions when code-switching. They believed that it was intended mainly to enhance their students' understanding and to save their time from lengthy explanation whenever the students are in doubt. This was agreeable by most students as they believed that code-switching could help them understand the lessons better. Some recommendations are made based on the findings and analysis of the results, expecting that it would further improve the teaching of Mathematics, Science and technical subjects in the Malaysian polytechnics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]