2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Ph.D. graduate students in engineering are being hired in industry at higher rates compared to institutions of higher education. Yet, workforce preparedness, typically occurring within these institutions of higher education, are not equipped to help Ph.D. engineering students to transition into the workforce. Therefore, to better prepare our engineering graduate students, we must start by understanding the current state of Ph.D. professional preparation programs in both industry and academia. This exploratory study's purpose was to scope existing peer-reviewed and published articles describing the focus and target audience of engineering workforce training programs for graduate students in industry and academia. The study aimed to explore what existing workforce trainings exist for graduate engineering students and then, to see what skills they are teaching students. The objective was to, using the information from the scoping review, to begin to outline workplace reading skills and criteria for a future development of a theory of workplace readiness for Ph.D. engineering graduate students. This exploratory study used the Virginia Workplace Readiness skills framework to classify the skills provided to participants of these workforce development programs. The research questions (RQs) for this study were: (RQ1) What training programs exist in the literature for workforce development for engineering Ph.D. students? (sub-RQ1) How are Ph.D. workforce training programs for engineering graduate students in the literature being described? (RQ2) What workforce readiness skills do these training programs have for engineering Ph.D. students and how do they align with the type of skills described in the Virginia Workplace Readiness skills framework? To address these research questions and sub-research questions, we performed a systematized literature review utilizing three databases: SCOPUS, Engineering Village and ERIC. The selection of the databases was based on our goal to synthesize education-related literature within engineering by structuring a search that yields multidisciplinary results. The systematized literature review included an initial screening of 567 abstracts and resulted in the synthesis of 23 papers. We identified the characteristics and common goals of these programs. The workforce training programs were classified into three themes: (1) personal qualities and abilities, (2) interpersonal skills, and (3) professional competencies.

The findings shed light into: (1) the need to prepare engineering Ph.D. students in professional skills, given its lack of mention in workforce training programs; (2) the efforts that have gone into preparing engineering Ph.D. students in cutting-edge technical topics; and (3) highlighting the need to increase participation of industry in professional training of graduate students.