Volume 5, Number 2, Spring 2005

Going Global: The Foreign Language Capacities and Global Interests of Engineering Students

Richard Devon

E-mail: duf@psu.edu

Kristine Lalley

E-mail: kxlcop@engr.psu.edu

Kim Barron

E-mail: kab386@psu.edu

Robert P. Pangborn

E-mail: rnp1@psu.edu

College of Engineering

The Pennsylvania State University

ABSTRACT

A pilot survey was carried out in the Spring Semester 2002 of 94 first-year engineering students to assess their foreign language competencies.  We found proficiency levels in that survey high enough to suggest that global engineering education policies may be based on the abilities of 40-50% of Penn State engineering students to function well in foreign language environments, while recognizing that the provision of a preparatory intermediate level course or intensive language training may often be helpful. The survey was repeated for 221 first-year engineering students in the fall of 2002 to confirm the preliminary results, which they did.  These local data are presented as a research note to address several policy issues that are not often formally addressed. We conclude that if these preliminary data are confirmed, student foreign language abilities should be viewed as a resource rather than as an impediment for globalizing the engineering education curriculum.

INTRODUCTION

The issues we address in this article are germane to the following objectives listed for EC 2004-5 by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) under Criterion 3. Program Outcomes and Assessment ¹:

(g) An ability to communicate effectively

(h) The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context

Taken together, these objectives imply that foreign language skills are relevant to the engineering curriculum.

Well before these criteria became adopted in 2000, we had been increasing our efforts in global engineering education (GEE) at Penn State ^{2, 6}.  Some of our initiatives have involved study abroad and global internships for 10+ years ²⁰, and others have used virtual design teams for 8+ years ^{9, 10, 18}. We also have a global service design projects program, Engineers without Frontiers ²¹.  Most recently, we have helped establish a global consortium for engineering design ⁷.  All of these activities have raised questions about how to assess the activities ⁴ and what the obstacles to global engineering education are ^{2, 17}.

In this paper, we present local survey data as a research note to contextualize a discussion of the issues attendant on the foreign language capacities and global interests of engineering students.  A shorter variation of this paper is also being published in non-archival, conference proceedings that uses a more developed policy focus and does not report the full data set ⁸. 

Some Constraints to GEE

The usual list of constraints to student participation in GEE programs includes cost, time to graduation, foreign language abilities, opportunities, interest levels, lack of faculty and staff mentoring, and lack of incentives for faculty.  We will present data that suggest that at least two of these constraints are not accurate assessments.

Constraints Reconsidered

·        Interest levels in GEE are a resource and not a constraint.

·        Foreign language skills are a resource and not a constraint.

·        Lack of opportunities is a constraint.

·        Lack of mentoring is a constraint.

·        Cost is a constraint.

·        Time to graduation is a constraint.

The Value of Foreign Language Skills in Global Engineering Education (GEE)

There are many desirable outcomes of global engineering education (GEE), and they vary by stakeholder. Students may pursue enhanced resumes, world peace, or cool and exciting opportunities, but there are other stakeholders.  In 2004, Bugliarello observed in introducing an edition of The Bridge (NAE) that is devoted to international engineering policy issues that “The synergy of engineering and science, business, finance, and politics has changed the world. Even though engineering is an indispensable element of that synergy, it is rarely considered an instrument of foreign policy and international relations.” He sees major challenges to engineers to help ameliorate the “corrosive imbalances” between the affluent and the poor and to deal with the problem of world sustainability ^{5, 11, and 13}.

Globally savvy engineers are necessary for managing global enterprises, which are necessary for increasing a company’s market share in the global economy.  And any preparation for working in the global economy that takes place in higher education will reduce in-company training for new hires.  While many programs such as study, work, and projects abroad help globalize the engineering curriculum, foreign language skills and the cross-cultural understanding that comes with them are critical for studying and working in non-English speaking countries. And this is recognized in some of the engineering programs best known for globalizing their curriculum, such as the University of Rhode Island [http://www.uri.edu/iep/] and Worcester Polytechnic Institute ¹².  See also http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/IGSD/Projects/.

Global corporations could make a major impact if they "globalized" their coop programs and arranged foreign placements as they do domestic placements. To date, they have found this hard to do.  An alternative is using information technology to bring the world into the classroom. We have been using this cost effective approach successfully for a long time ^{9, 10, 18}, as have a number of others ^{2, 11, 12}. This reaches more students, and it also raises student interest levels in real travel, and the demand for real opportunities is only intensified.

However, despite the few exceptional programs in global engineering education, there is a growing perception that most engineering graduates in the United States may face a competitive disadvantage in getting the best jobs in the global economy compared to students from top foreign universities who speak two or three languages and may have had experience in other countries prior to graduation ¹³. For example, this view was explicitly expressed by a senior Alcoa executive in their global human resources division to some of the authors in April 2004.  Unfortunately, many engineering faculty and administrators seem to believe that engineering undergraduates in the United States do not have the requisite skills in foreign languages for studying or interning abroad and are not likely to get those ¹⁷.  At Penn State, there has been an effort to provide some recognition for advanced language courses to meet some general education requirements, and there is currently a certificate of global engineering being developed that will require, and hence reward, ability in a foreign language.  Further, the global internship program that we have created sends more than half the students to foreign language environments, which is also a reward for foreign language ability.

Good News?

In fact, we can report on another positive change with respect to global engineering education. A 2002 internal survey of engineering faculty members at Penn State found about one third interested in being kept abreast of developments in global engineering education. That over one hundred faculty members would now say this appears, to those working in the field over the last decade, to be an order of magnitude increase from interest levels 10 years earlier.  In addition, almost all of these interested faculty members saw a need for engineering graduates to be competitive in the global economy.  

We decided to assess the foreign language skills of engineering students because we suspected from classroom experiences that we might get a pleasant surprise. This is partly due to the very global economy for which we think students should be prepared:  1) We have increasing numbers of foreign undergraduate students coming to the USA, although the growth rate has slowed since 9/11 ¹⁴,  2) Many students take four or more years of a foreign language in school before coming to Penn State (Penn State’s admissions requirement is only two years), 3) Some learn a foreign language from their parents, 4) Some are native speakers of a language other than English, and 5) Some have lived with their parents overseas for a long period of time. We wondered whether such factors added up to a considerable capacity among engineering students for operating in a foreign language environment.

THE SURVEY

The Instrument

The survey was placed on-line to gather data in a format (asp) that can be used in Excel and Access. On-line response rates are usually lower than direct email responses, but this survey is for use in-class under faculty direction. It is short and may be completed in five to ten minutes.

The survey identifies the native language and the competencies in second, third, and any other languages of the respondents. The competency level for each was assessed by the respondents, who also indicated the primary and secondary sources of learning that language (school, parents, living overseas, etc.). They rated their competency as fluent, very good, good, basic functionality, or weak.  As a benchmark, “good” competency was taken to mean the equivalent of five to six years of school study of that language, roughly equivalent to three university courses. Obviously, this method of self assessment was convenient for us, but we do not think it an unreasonable standard for a preliminary survey, and we revisit what it means later in the paper.  Students were also asked if they intended to major or minor in a foreign language, to study or work overseas, or to study a new language.

The Survey Instrument

The instrument appeared to work very well, and few changes were made from the preliminary study. The main change was to seek data on the age at which the foreign language was first learned to see if starting at a younger age was, as expected, a positive factor in foreign language acquisition. We also had them rate their strongest and weakest facility among reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

The Sample

The 221 student respondents in the first–year class were mostly first (48%), second (13%), or third (21%) semester students, thus providing a fairly good measure of entering students in engineering at the University Park campus at Penn State. They did the survey on-line and in-class in about half of the sections of the introductory first-year engineering design course. Almost all the data came from sections in which the response rates were 80-90%.  Female students comprised 19% of the sample. The survey was conducted in spring 2003.

THE RESULTS

Native Tongue

The sample showed a strong representation of non-native English speakers (35), with only 84% declaring English as their native tongue (Table 1). The percentage of foreign-born undergraduates attending engineering school in the United States has been rising, although they are still far less than the numbers in graduate school.

Table 1: Native Language of Respondents

The “other” entries contained no duplicates and were languages from around the world from Punjabi to Ukrainian.  Since the survey was conducted post 9/11, the number of native Arabic speakers was down by an estimated 50-80%.  From the perspective of global corporations seeking market penetration in most countries, this language diversity represents an important resource.

To simplify the presentation for this research note, we will proceed only using the data for native English speakers, bearing in mind that about one in six of our students has a different native tongue. However, the percentages given are of the total sample, thus allowing simple addition to get the full picture.  Another simplification is that we have not included the variables of citizenship and immigrant status.

Second Language

The students were told that good or better foreign language competency meant five to six years of study in school, or the equivalent, or more.  For the native English speakers, there were 33% (29% of males and 47% of females) who responded affirmatively. The second languages listed with this level of proficiency included Spanish (12%), French (7%), German (3%), and Chinese (3%).  If this figure of 33% is added to the foreign native language data, we get 49% of the students who have a foreign language ability in the range of “good” to fluent. This result has changed the way in which we view the preparation for engineering students for foreign study and internships in non-English speaking countries.

Asked if they rated their second language as fluent, only 5% said yes (4% male, 8% female).  However, even ignoring the proficiencies of non-native English speakers, we have about 50 students in the entering class each year of about 1,000 in Penn State’s College of Engineering at its University Park campus who are fluent in a second language already. And another ~300 students who probably need only a refresher course or intensive language program prior to departure to have the capacity to function well enough for an internship in a foreign language environment.  In contrast, in a good year, we only send 15-20 undergraduates on global internships, most of who go to foreign language environments.  We also send about 50 engineering students on study abroad programs each year, almost of all whom go to English speaking countries. The Department of German at Penn State, for example, recommends the equivalent of about 6 university courses in German before study abroad in German, whereas for entry level internships we have had success with students who have had five or six years of high school study of a foreign language, even after only one year at university.

Third Language Competency

There were 11 students (5%) who listed their competency as good or better in a third language. Some of these third languages were French (5), Spanish (3), Russian (2), German (2), Indonesian (2), Cantonese, Hindi, Japanese, and Chinese.  A very few students indicated some knowledge of a fourth language.

Age of Foreign Language Competency

The data in Table 2 indicate one of the contradictions of foreign language acquisition in K-12 education. Whereas it has long been known that all language acquisition is best begun very young, foreign languages are usually studied in the US only in secondary school. In our data, we see 60% of the sample beginning at age 13 or older.  However, the good news is that 40% of the students began earlier.

Table 2: Age Learning Began for Second Language

(All Students)

The relationship between the age at which foreign language acquisition began and the attained competency is inverse and very strong. This is to be expected, since foreign languages are better learned when young, and, if they are begun when young, there are more years of formal and informal study available.

Sources of Foreign Language Learning

The main source of learning a second language found was school, but significant numbers of students mentioned the role of parents and living abroad.  Table 3 shows the data for the native English speakers.  Clearly, schools dominate in the acquisition of competency rated “good” or better, but the significance of parents and living abroad becomes very strong for those who have achieved fluency.

Table 3:

Sources of Learning a Second Language among Native English Speakers

(% checking each category)

Interest Levels in Travel for Work and Study

Only 11 (5%) students were considering taking a foreign language minor, and only one wanted to do a double major with a foreign language. However, a large number of students (41%) were interested in studying or working abroad. Thus, student interest levels in foreign opportunities, like their language proficiency levels, represent a positive picture of the preparedness of students to travel for work and study even in foreign language environments.  And while they see no time in the curriculum for extensive study of foreign languages, the students do see some time in the curriculum for foreign languages. There were 62 (28%) students who intended to take a foreign language course at Penn State, and there were 19 (9%) students who were interested in studying a new foreign language.

Judging by the reports and the informal feedback we get from students who take global internships, the internships should be highly sought after. The vast majority of the students are extremely enthusiastic about their experiences, and they often refer to it as “life-changing.” We even get responses like this from students who only go on a one-week tour of French industries.

Gender

As shown in Table 4, female students typically had better foreign language skills, more interest in taking further language courses, more interest in taking a language minor, and were more likely to aspire to travel than the male students.  The male students were more likely to switch to a new language.  These patterns did not change when we looked only at native English speaking students.

Table 4: Gender Effects

(All Students)

 Confidence levels

The students were asked to rate their confidence in reading, writing, listening and speaking for their second language. These are shown in Table 5. Predictably, confidence levels run higher for reading and listening than for writing and speaking.  The percentages rating themselves as either confident or very confident were reading (34%), listening (29%), speaking (26%), and writing (21%).  Including the “fairly confident” dramatically raises the totals to reading (63%), listening (53%), speaking (49%), and writing (47%). This indicates that at least 40-50% of the students feel ready now to function in a second language or just need another course or intensive language training program to reach the desired proficiency and confidence levels.  Indeed, it identifies the level at which intensive language training is needed.

Table 5: Confidence Levels in the Second Language

(All Students)

ANALYSIS

Engineering, Language, and the Global Economy

The background factors that promote these levels of foreign language competency have a lot to do with the global economy, for which increasing numbers of engineering students need to be prepared ¹³.  We should expect these trends to continue and for the current levels of foreign language competency and the interest in study and work overseas also to grow.  Some specific factors affecting the language competency levels are migration, being raised in families working overseas, travel, and, presumably, a greater awareness of the global economy through exposure in the market place, schools, work, and the media.  The schools may start language programs too late, but they are doing a good job of sending students to engineering school with 5+ years of study in a foreign language, and one assumes they must be sensitive to the needs of the global economy and for international understanding. The role of these factors was presumably enhanced by the middle and upper middle class backgrounds of the students in this sample.

Good Enough for What?  

While we are optimistic about the foreign language competencies of our students, we do need to answer the question: what is it that their foreign languages abilities will help them do? We cannot answer this definitively using our self assessment method. Nevertheless, we have shown that there are considerable and widespread foreign language abilities among engineering students and corresponding confidence levels in their abilities. They also display high interest levels in working and studying abroad.  For taking internships and co-ops in a foreign language environment, we have been successful by selecting students with at least five or more years in school (or 3 college level courses) and self confidence in this ability.  Global internships are a good way to raise foreign language skills further and the confidence to use them.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data suggest that about 40% of our undergraduate engineering students are interested in foreign opportunities, and 40-50% could pursue at least work experiences even in a foreign language environment, perhaps with one further course prior to departure.  However, as a percentage of the graduating cohort size, we are sending about 1.5% for global internships (mostly in foreign language environments) and about 4 % for study abroad (mostly in English speaking universities). While it is evident that a further language course or intensive languages program is often needed, existing foreign language skills and interest levels in work and study abroad programs are high enough for expansion of such programs. We also believe we are identifying a need for intermediate training in foreign languages at the university level in regular classes and in intensive training programs either in the US or, better, in the target country. This would allow us to develop the extensive ability base we have identified here rather than start over, notwithstanding the power of intensive summer programs that provide the first three university level courses. Minors (~ 6 university courses) and certificates (~ 4 university courses) in both global engineering and in foreign languages should be encouraged more, since that is where the market potential is.

There are inhibiting factors for students, such as cost and time to graduation. However, with respect to working and studying overseas in foreign language environments, foreign language abilities and interest levels are not significant constraints. Rather, we should focus on issues like generating the opportunities and the supporting funds, on incentives such as certificates and minors, and on minimizing the impact of global engineering education on the time to graduation.

REFERENCES

1. Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs: Effective for Evaluations during the 2004-2005 Accreditation Cycle. ABET, Baltimore Maryland, 2003.  http://www.abet.org/

2.      Anwar, Sohail. Preparing Students for Global Job Markets Through International Academic Linkages: A Case Study. International Conference for Engineering Education (ICEE) 2002, Manchester, England, 18–22 Aug. (2002).

3.      Baxter, Jim; Wells, Valana; de Pennington, Alan; Henderson, Mark R. The Global Engineering Design Team (GEDT): A Transatlantic Team-based Design for Undergraduates. Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education 2000 Annual Conference, St Louis MS.

4.      Bilén, Sven G., Richard F. Devon, Mark Henderson, & Hien Nguyen. Global Approaches to Teaching Global Design: Stakeholders, Programmes, and Assessments. World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education, forthcoming, 2004.

5.       Bugliarello, George. Engineering, Foreign Policy, and Global Challenges. The Bridge, National Academy of Engineering, 34, 2, Summer 2004.

6.       Devon, Richard, Wayne Hager, Jean-Francois Pauwels, Jacques Lesenne, Building an International Collaboration in Engineering and Technology Education. ICEE-97: Proceedings of the International Conference on International Engineering Education, Chicago, 1997.

7.      Devon, R.F., A. de Pennington, and A. McKay. A Consortium for Global Engineering Design. Proceedings of the Inaugural CDEN (Canadian Design Engineering Network) Design Conference. Montreal, 2004. Also see http://prestige.psu..edu/

8.      Devon, R.F., K. Lalley, K. Barron, and R. N. Pangborn. Global Engineering Education Constraints and Resources: The Foreign Language Capacities and Global Interests of Engineering Students. Proceedings of the National Honors Conference 2004, National Honors Society. Washington, DC.

9.      Devon, R.F., and Buvat, P., Leaving home with IT: Cross-national design teams using information technology, 2001 National Honors Society Conference. National Honors Society, Washington, DC, 2003.

10. Devon, R. F., D. Saintive, W. R. Hager, M. Nowé, J. Lesenne, and D. Sathianathan.  1998. Alliance by Design: International Student Design Teams.  Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education 1998 Annual Conference, Seattle, Session 2544.
11. Devon, Richard F. The Uneasy Triangle: Theory, Policy and Reality in Educational Resource Flows Between Center and Periphery. Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. XVIII, Nos. 1-2, 1983.
12. Durgin, William W., and Donald N. Zwiep. 2001. Global Projects Prepare WPI Students for the 21^st Century. In Educating the Engineer for the 21^st Century, edited by Weichert, D. B. Rauhut, and R. Schmidt. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
13. Friedemann, Johannes Weidauer. Educating Engineers for the Global Market: Challenges and Solutions. Journal of Language for International Business,12, 1, 2001.
14. Herder, P.M., E. Subrahmanian, S. Talukdar, A.L. Turk, A.W. Westerberg, The use of video-taped lectures and web-based communications in teaching: a distance-teaching and cross-Atlantic collaboration experiment, European Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2002.
15. Herder, P.M., Sjoer, E., Group-Based Learning In Internationally Distributed Teams, An Evaluation of a Cross-Atlantic Experiment, Proceedings of Frontiers in Education 2003 (FIE2003), Boulder, Colorado, Nov. 5-8, 2003.

16.  Institute of International Education, Open Doors 2003: International students in the U.S., 3 Nov. (2003).  Available from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=36523

17. Meillier, Robert.  Foreign language learning: a deterrent or an incentive for engineering students? Engineering Science and Education Journal 2:33-36, 1995.

18.  Pollard, J.D., Devon, R.F., McKay, A., and Bilén, S.G., Teaching design through international collaboration, International Conference for Engineering Education (ICEE) 2002, Manchester, England, 18–22 Aug. (2002).

19.  Wulf, William. President’s Remarks, 2003 Annual Meeting. National Academy of Engineering, Washington DC.

20.  See http://www.engr.psu.edu/ProspectiveStudents/Undergraduate/intl.asp  Viable as of November 2005.

21.  See http://www.clubs.psu.edu/up/ewf/  Viable as of November 2005.

Biographical Sketches

Richard F. Devon

Richard Devon has two degrees and three years of practical experience in Civil Engineering and a Ph.D in Educational Sociology. His last two degrees were from the University of California at Berkeley. He is an Associate Professor of Design and the Director of the Engineering Design Program in the School for Engineering Design, Technology, and Professional Programs at The Pennsylvania State University, where he has received several teaching awards. He has done research in spatial visualization but currently focuses on the nature of design, collaborative distributive teams, design ethics, and design education. Devon is the US PI for Prestige, an international consortium for global product design and development http://prestige.psu.edu/

Kristine Lalley

Kristine Lalley is the International Programs Adviser/Instructor for the College of Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University.  In this role, she oversees the development and management of study abroad programs for students in engineering, as well as directing and developing an international internship and cooperative education program in the college. She also teaches a course on global cross-cultural experiences in engineering development to undergraduate students in the College of Engineering. She is currently pursuing a D.Ed. in Adult and Workforce Education at Penn State, with a focus on international education and professional development, and holds a Master’s degree in French from the University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelor’s degree in French from New York University. 

Kim Barron

Kim Barron is a senior pursuing her B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering at Penn State, as well as minors in Business/Liberal Arts and Statistics.  She also works for the Dean's Office, specializing in database generation and analysis, and she serves as the undergraduate representative on the College of Engineering Climate Survey Committee.  She is a member of the Envisioneers, a student organization sponsored by the Leonhard Center, which seeks to stimulate change and improvement in engineering education.

Robert N. Pangborn

Rob Pangborn is Professor of Engineering Mechanics and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the College of Engineering at Penn State.  He holds B.S. and B.A. degrees in Civil Engineering and Business Administration and earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanics and Materials Science at Rutgers University.  He chaired the Special Committee on General Education at Penn State and has led a number of interdisciplinary initiatives focused on curricular change and integration.  He teaches and conducts research in engineering mechanics and materials.