Needs assessment for manufacturing engineering technologists

Abstract

Through this study entry level tasks needed by manufacturing engineering technologists in the year 2000 were identified and ranked for use in curriculum development in manufacturing engineering technology programs. To accomplish this objective, two procedures were followed. In the first procedure, a nationwide panel of experts participated in a Delphi study to generate unrestrained task statements required by entry level manufacturing engineering technologists in the year 2000. Through the open-ended First Round instrument 69 tasks were identified and included in the Round Two instrument. In Round Two of the Delphi study the panel members were asked to indicate on a five point Likert-type scale the degree of importance of each task as needed by an entry level manufacturing engineering technologist in the year 2000. The Round Three instrument enabled panel members to evaluate their responses to the modal responses of the second round. If their responses were different than the majority response, they were asked to consider changing their response to the majority response or state their reason for remaining an exception. Consensus was predetermined to be 75% (10 of 14) of the panelists responses with a modal rating of four or above. The Delphi study generated 37 tasks that were identified as being needed by manufacturing engineering technologists in the year 2000. In the second procedure, a survey was used to validate the findings of the Delphi panel and obtain a broader representation of company types and disciplines who would employ manufacturing engineering technologists. All 37 tasks included in the final recommendation by the Delphi panel were incorporated in the survey instrument. Through the review of literature, 13 additional tasks were included in the survey instrument. A stratified random sampling technique by plant size was used to survey 401 Texas manufacturing firms...