Resumen de Graduate attributes in an electrical engineering curriculum: a case study

Lawrence Meda, Arthur James Swart

• Industry and accreditation bodies around the world require graduates to be able to demonstrate specific graduateattributes. Universities in this 21st century have responded to that call by embedding graduate attributes into theircurricula. However, how can individual academics ensure that they are incorporating and assessing graduate attributes intheir respective modules, which form part of the overall curriculum? This research question necessitates reflection as manyacademics are struggling to come to terms with what many of these graduate attributes really mean or entail. Moreover, adearth of research publications exists on trying to define and explain these graduate attributes. The purpose of this article isto determine to what extent have the 10 graduate attributes, adopted by the Central University of Technology beenembedded into the curriculum of the National Diploma in Electrical Engineering. A qualitative case study was used anddata was collected using documentary review. All 36 study guides of the Electrical Engineering qualification were analysed.Results of this study show that 9 out of 10 graduate attributes are spread across the entire curriculum. The four mostdominate graduate attributes were found to be Innovation and Problem Solving; Technical and Conceptual Competence;Numeracy, and Technological Literacy. Certain graduate attributes are clearly discerned in the learning outcomes whileothers are hidden in different teaching and learning activities. A key recommendation of this study is for academics tostructure their learning outcomes in a way that addresses the incorporation and assessment of key graduate attributesrequired.