We are teaching engineering students what they need to know, aren´t we?

Based in Eccles expectancy-value motivational theory, this research qualitatively examines engineering faculty members´ beliefs about which skills are important for their students´ success as future engineers, how these skills are taught, and if the students have these skills upon graduation. Consistent with ABET outcome criteria, the results show that faculty participants believe technical, interpersonal, self-regulatory, and social responsibility skills are important. They believe students have some but not all of these skills at graduation. The participants believe students learn these skills through course content, learning environment and through observing faculty modeling these desired behaviors. The faculty report that they actively and transparently teach course content, but are less explicit about the balance of the skills in their teaching.