Exploring the perspectives of undergraduates, graduates and managers on the skills learned in higher education engineering

Lucas Trajano de Freitas Almeida; Marcele Elisa Fontana

doi:10.5585/2025.26785

Authors

Lucas Trajano de Freitas Almeida Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil https://orcid.org/0009-0001-5164-1321
Marcele Elisa Fontana Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1436-8311

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5585/2025.26785

Keywords:

higher education, business, soft skills, hard skills

Abstract

The current job market has increasingly required behavioral skills from engineering professionals when compared to technical skills. However, Higher Education Institutions often do not prepare undergraduates for the real job market requirements. This study set out to analyze the gap between the skills developed during higher education (HE) in engineering from the students' perspectives (undergraduates and graduates) and those required by the labor market. Two self-administration questionnaires were developed and applied to: (1) students and former students of the engineering course, and (2) companies’ managers from the same location as the course. The data were analyzed in order to answer six hypotheses research developed based on the concepts found in the literature. The results confirm there is a gap between the skills developed by the university and the skills valued by companies. This work contributes to the discussion about the quality of HE in Engineering, mainly in developing countries like Brazil.

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Author Biographies

Lucas Trajano de Freitas Almeida, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil

Graduated in Production Engineering from UFPE.

Marcele Elisa Fontana, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil

Marcele Elisa Fontana: Ph.D. in Production Engineering. She is an associate professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), a permanent member of the Post-Graduate Program in Management, Innovation and Consumption (PPGIC), and leader of the research group on Strategic Decisions in Production and Logistics (DEPLog).

Topics: Production Management, Quality Management, Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Circular Economy and Sustainability, and decision-making modeling.

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