Continuing Education of Engineers (1985) / Chapter Skim
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2. Participation in Continuing Education-The Engineer's Perspective
2. Participation in Continuing Education-The Engineer's Perspective
Pages 8-37
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From page 8... ...
4. Does participation in continuing education by engineers vary by level of education, career stage, field, size/location of firm, or employer financial support?
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From page 9... ...
Also, since the questionnaires in the two studies were somewhat comparable, the panel compared data on most {but not allJ the objectives of engineers pursuing continuing education in large urban and small nonurban firms. For engineers in large urban firms, the most important reason for participating in continuing education was to prepare for increased responsibility Table 1J.
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However, factor analysis of the data Presented belowJ shows that engineers who chose intellectual stimulation as an objective tended also to believe that continuing education was important to prevent obsolescence. Regardless of the size of the firm employers tended to perceive intellectual stimulation as a less important objective of continuing education than did their engineers.
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From page 11... ...
: to maintain and improve job performance; for increased responsibilities, advancement, and rewards; for intellectual stimulation; and to prepare for a new job. While the studies cited above indicate that differences in work environments apparently do affect engineers' motivation to participate in continuing education, the data are too limited to arrive at any meaningful conclusions.
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From page 12... ...
From these results it is clear that while organizational barriers and personal commitments deter engineers in small nonurban firms from participating in continuing education, the greatest obstacles are the distance, inconvenience, and unavailability of courses. To determine whether the distance barrier could be overcome, the engineers in the survey were asked how far they were willing to travel for continuing
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From page 13... ...
For continuing education activities not involving an overnight stay, the acceptable distances were relatively short and diminished rapidly as the number of regular trips increased. It appears that while engineers in small nonurban firms are willing to travel some distance to participate in continuing education, they may still be too far from locations where courses they want are offered.
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In general, it appears that, despite the greater availability and proximity of educational institutions, the most important barriers to continuing education participation for engineers in an urban area are similar to those in nonurban areas. Whether this TABLE 3 Barriers to Continuing Education Participation by Engineersin the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area Percents Barrier Lack of time Inconvenient location Inconvenient time Course not available Course poorly presented Unaware the course was offered Lack of incentive Insufficient employer financial support Educational level too low Educational level too high a Percentages are based on 4,447 respondents.
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From page 15... ...
Among older engi TABLE 4 Major Goals of Older Engineers in Six Organizations Who Participated in Continuing Educationa Goal Percentage Perform the present job assignment better Promote intellectual stimulation Prepare for increased responsibility Meet the expectations of the supervisor Prepare for a new job in the current field Enhance one's position in the field Remedy deficiencies in initial training Prepare for a new job in other fields Fulfill requirements for promotion Obtain a salary increase 61.1 22.7 19.2 8.3 7.3 7.3 3.6 3.6 0.0 0.0 a N = 81. SOURCE: Adapted from Kaufman ( 1982~.
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From page 16... ...
Thus, an engineer's job appears to be an important determinant of participation in formal continuing education courses. In general, barriers to continuing education participation tended to be less prevalent among these older engineers than among engineers in TABLE 5 Reasons Given by Older Engineers for Not Participating in Coursesa 52.1 23.1 21.4 17.5 6.2 7.8 1.4 Reason Too much time taken from family/ personal life Too much travel required Courses offered during working hours Job does not require more education Not having adequate prerequisites Financial burden too great Possible competition from recent graduates Percent Rating Reason as Moderately / Extremely Important Mean Rating 3.4 3.1 2.1 2.8 1.7 1.4 1.4 a N = 147.
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From page 17... ...
Understanding how the needs and motivation of engineers to participate in continuing education change with career stage is a major gap in our knowledge of lifelong engineering learning. Factors That Determine Participation As mentioned earlier, it is difficult to obtain accurate recent data on the degree of participation of engineers in continuing education.
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From page 18... ...
data { 1975aJ, the percentage of engineers who had participated in any kind of program declined dramatically with increasing education Stable 6~. Almost 9 out of 10 engineers without a college education had received some type of training program, compared to only half of the Ph.Ds.
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From page 19... ...
Industrial and mining/petroleum engineers had high participation rates at all educational levels with the exception of those with only one to three years of college. Low participation rates tended to occur at almost all educational levels among TABLE 7 Percentage of Engineers Who Had Received Training During Their Career {by Field in 1972)
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20 to v ._ an .
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Engineers were in demand and new engineers were in short supply owing to the low college enrollments in engineering caused by the recession of 1970-1971, which involved mass terminations of engineers ; Kaufman, 1979b, 1982b ~ . J Preliminary survey data collected by NSF in 1982 reveal that the annual continuing education participation rate continued to increase, TABLE 9 Annual Training Participation Rates of Engineers During 1972-1977 Type of Training Any training On the job Employer courses Extension/correspondence courses 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 46.9 46.8 21.0 21.1 20.7 22.2 5.2 5.2 45.9 20.6 22.1 4.4 46.8 49.9 21.0 25.5 21.5 22.7 4.5 5.1 52.2 26.2 23.7 5.1 NOTE: Data are based on a weighted population of engineers, excluding nonrespondents .
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From page 22... ...
Career Stages The rate at which engineers participate in continuing education clearly tends to decline with age or career stage. For example, preliminary analyses of the Bureau of the Census data show that almost two out of three engineers in the early stage of their careers participated in employer-sponsoredin-house courses curing 1972-1977 ~Figure3~.
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SOURCE: Preliminary analysis of the Bureau of the Census Survey of Natural and Social Scientists and Engineers, 1972-1978. 40 z LL C: rr LL CL 30 44.9 - o 40.7 / 39.5 o~ 39.5 EARLY CAREER N - 1693 36.9 34.9 ~ MIOCAREER N = 3419 29.1 29.0 o ~ LATE CAREER N - 4794 to 30.4 to 1972- 1974- 1976 1 973 1 975 1 977 NOTE: See Figure 3 for career stage definition.
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From page 24... ...
The nature of these courses varied widely {Table 13J. As might be expected, most of the formal continuing education comprised noncredit in-house courses, although accredited courses offered primarily by universities attracted some participation.
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From page 25... ...
. Characteristic TABLE 13 Characteristics of Courses in Which Midcareer Engineers Participated in the Past 3 Yearsa Percentage of Participating Engineers Type of courses Accredited Noncredit Source sponsor University In-house Other Course emphasis Specific skills General knowledge Relationship to job For current job For future job Not job related Level of course Introductory Intermediate State of the art 14.4 40.2 13.4 37.8 9.2 15.4 27.4 17.0 17.1 7.9 20.1 33.7 13.6 a N = 164.
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From page 26... ...
According to the data in the Battelle studies, 64 percent of the engineers in large urban firms had participated in continuing education during the previous year {Levy and Newman, 1979~ as opposed to only 35 percent of those in smallnonurban establishments "Welling et al., 1980~. The biggest data discrepancies between the two types of firms occurred for courses taken for credit; large urban firms showed substantially higher percentages of participation.
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From page 27... ...
It is clear that such employer support for university courses has contributed greatly to the education of engineers. By the early 1970s, 41 percent of the engineers pursuing graduate education had received financial support from their employers.
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From page 28... ...
Related research revealed that 61.3 percent of the engineers in the small nonurban firms whose employers did not provide support for advanced and continuing education had not participated in courses during the previous three years; in firms that did not provide support, only 37.1 percent of the engineers had not participated "Welling et al., 1980~. Lack of employer support, therefore, appears to play a significant role in discouraging participation in courses, especially in small nonurban firms where travel time is also a major barrier.
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From page 29... ...
..... ~ LEGEND ~ ESTABLISHMENTS |||||||||| PARTICIPANTS NOT AT SLIGHTLY MODERATELY VERY EXTENSIVELY ALL EFFECTIVENESS FIGURE 5 Comparison of the judged effectiveness of continuing technical education as perceived by small nonurban establishments and participants.
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From page 31... ...
and not for those in organizations doing more applied work in development or manufacturing. Thus, the work environment has an important impact on continuing education outcomes as well as on participation Kaufman, 1982a)
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. However, relating continuing education to obsolescence is difficult because of the problems in measuring obsolescence.
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. For employed midcareer engineers, academic, industrial, and governmental reeducation activities remain essentially undocumented; research on employer-sponsored midcareer reeducation per se has been reported only for individual cases of university-industry collaborative programs [e.g., Reddy and Rabins, 1984~.
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From page 36... ...
2. Engineers participate in continuing education with a variety of objectives; typically, these may involve maintaining and improving job performance, preparing for increased responsibilities, pursuing advancement and rewards, promoting intellectual stimulation, preventing obsolescence, or preparing for a new job.
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From page 37... ...
Recommendations Considering the dated information noted above on continuing education for engineers, the panel believes the following recommendations are appropriate to close the gaps in our knowledge: 1. The National Science Foundation jNSFJ should resume its role in supporting research and development {R&tDJ in continuing education.
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