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Identifying engineering education goals and priorities for the future: An experiment with the Delphi technique

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Abstract

Forty national goals of engineering education for the coming decade were identified by 106 Indian experts in the first round of a government-sponsored Delphi in India. The participants were outstanding engineers and technologists in the country, drawn from public and private sector industries, R and D organizations, engineering education institutions, government departments and defence services. In the second round, the priorities of these goals for the basic (undergraduate) engineering programme were determined. The initial consensus on priorities which was generated in the second round was then increased by adopting Delphi procedures in subsequent rounds. The design, monitoring procedures, results and difficulties experienced by the authors are described and discussed. In spite of its limitations, it is felt that the Delphi technique is a useful tool for identifying engineering education goals and priorities and for generating convergence of group opinion on them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India

    Shakuntala Balaraman & K. S. Venkatakrishnan

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  1. Shakuntala Balaraman
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  2. K. S. Venkatakrishnan
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Balaraman, S., Venkatakrishnan, K.S. Identifying engineering education goals and priorities for the future: An experiment with the Delphi technique. High Educ 9, 53–67 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00149135

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00149135

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