Determinants of holistic thinking in engineering demographics

• Main Author: Stirgus, Erin
• Other Authors: Junfeng Ma
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: MSSTATE 2019
• Subjects: Industrial and Systems Engineering
• Online Access: http://sun.library.msstate.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-03222019-132301/

The current workforce climate has naturally led the way for wanting more systemic thinking individuals. This increasing complexity demands that universities train engineering students to be able to handle such difficulties amidst the interconnectedness of the world. This study aims to aid in understanding what will help the future leaders of the world become more equipped to handle these global and complex systems. College engineering students were the target population of this study. It was found that neither gender, educational level, grade point average, nor having an internship or co-op helped aid students to have higher systems thinking skills. However, employment status was found to affect the systems thinking skills scores. Laying the foundation for understanding engineering students ability to be more or less holistic thinkers, this research aims to help evolve engineering education.