Presentation skills for engineers: systematic interventions in a project-based learning course

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect on effective presentation skills for engineering students and the effect of specific interventions on the quality of presentation skills. Most authors, who discuss transferable competencies for engineers, refer to different types of communication skills in general to oral and written communication skills. Although there is a broad recognition on the necessity of developing transferable skills in engineering education, there is no general agreement on what these they should be. Therefore, presentation skills are studied in the context of a project-based learning experience at the Industrial Management and Engineering (IME) programme of the University of Minho. Six groups of seven first year students of the first semester of the IME integrated Master´s degree programme carried out a semester-long project from September 2010 till January 2011. Three project oral presentations were conducted, preceded by three interventions focused on specific aspects of oral presentations. The teachers and the educational researchers involved in the project coordination team commented on the presentations and a qualitative analysis of the comments was carried out. The organisation of the interventions revealed to be well adapted to the developments that student went through in the project.