Improving capacity for engineering systems thinking (CEST) among industrial engineering students

Systems education and training should become an integral part of the academic curriculum design. This paper presents an undergraduate course aimed at developing students´ capacity for engineering systems thinking (CEST). The course is based on executing projects in teams. The students´ CEST prior to and at the end of the course was assessed by addressing and measuring four components: cognitive characteristics, abilities, personal traits, and knowledge. The data collected in this study was used to analyze the four above-mentioned components of CEST. The Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) program was used to analyze the collected data; the general data analysis approach, known as Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), was also implemented. The research findings allow us to conclude that the final project contributed to the development of three out of four CEST components among learners.