Engineering graduates' skill sets in the MENA region : a gap analysis of industry expectations and satisfaction

Abstract

This study aimed at exploring potential gaps between industry expectations and evaluations of engineering graduates' skill sets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Of primary concern were the evaluation and quantification of the expectations and perceptions of the industry. This was done by measuring perceived skill importance and satisfaction in the population and by comparing them across different demographics. Furthermore, this study aimed to study the overall employability of engineers in the region. Industry professionals were contacted across the MENA region through an online questionnaire consisting of 39 distinct skills compiled from previous international studies that had focused on identifying the skills needed by modern engineering professionals. Results showed that significant gaps existed in all 39 skills. The means of reported importance, satisfaction, and skill gaps were ranked to determine in which areas engineering graduates needed most improvement. Further, the perceived overall employability of engineers was shown to be relatively lacking (population mean 95% confidence interval between 4.16 and 4.95 out of a potential maximum of 10). Additionally, a principal component analysis consolidated these skills into 8 distinct categories that summarized these skills, with a KMO value of 0.85 and a significant Bartlett's test of sphericity at p= 0.05, demonstrating construct validity. There was evidence of the reliability of the scale used in this study with Cronbach's Alpha values of 0.930 and 0.949 for importance and satisfaction respectively. Finally, analyses of variance were performed on the reported importance of skills, on the calculated skill gaps, and on the perceived employability of engineering graduates. These steps aimed to explore the potential differences between perceptions of these factors between different demographic groups. There was evidence that demographics had an effect on how certain variables were perceived. Recommendations on how these results may be applied to future research pertaining to engineering curricula reform were made.