Exploration and verification of fourth industrial revolution generic skills attributes for entry-level civil engineers

Abstract

<span lang="EN-US">The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) requires the workforce to be equipped with new skills when existing skills need to be upgraded or improved because they are no longer in line with technological advancement in 4IR. Thus, it is crucial to determine what the new skills or 4IR skills are that can help the future workforce obtain a job after graduation. This study aimed to explore and verify the attributes of nine 4IR generic skills (GS4IR) for entry-level civil engineers in Malaysia by using a qualitative approach. An interview session was conducted with five senior engineers in the civil engineering (CE) field and three experts (two engineers in CE and one lecturer in CE faculty) for reliability data verification. The interview data were analyzed using coding analysis and presented in a matrix table. The results show 76 items identified as attributes of nine GS4IR constructs. Next, the verification of the constructs and attributes of GS4IR was obtained from Fleiss Kappa's reliability analysis to determine the overall approval index. The results of the analysis revealed an overall Kappa coefficient value of 0.61, which indicates a good level of agreement. The findings of this study consist of 58 attributes for nine constructs of GS4IR approved after the inter-rater reliability among the experts. The findings from this study are beneficial for the development of a framework of 4IR generic skills for civil engineering graduates as guidance to instill new skills in producing future engineers.</span>

Behold the Fourth Industrial Revolution and How to Keep Pace with Workplace Competencies in an Ever-Changing World of Work!

“…As she predicted, the workforce is faced with the challenge of coping with tasks and technologies for which no schooling ever prepared them to handle. Little wonder that the general conversation about Fourth Industrial Revolution skills [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] seems to focus more on portable employability skills such as the following in addition to technical digital skills: These skills are portable across disciplines because they are generic. Workers who have these skills are likely to cope with the ever-changing nature of work and the new technologies that drive the work because they will have the right attitude toward change, the resilience to withstand confusing and ambiguous work situations, the cognitive aptitude to learn new skills, the communication and people skills needed to enable them to interact with other people despite the tendency of technology to promote isolation and individualism, and the preparedness and ability to solve problems arising from the nature of machines, tasks, and the social or physical environment at the workplace.…”