Specifying Competencies in Materials for Technician Education

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Specifying Competencies in Materials for
Technician Education

• Results of a nationwide study involving the
  materials industry

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MatEd The National Resource Center for Materials
Technology EducationEdmonds Community College,
Lynnwood, WA

• Tom Stoebe, U. of Washington
• Bob Mott, Univ. of Dayton, Sinclair CC
• Bob Simoneau, Keene State U.
• Mel Cossette, Edmonds CC

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MatEd Goals

• Develop a set of core competencies in the area of
  materials technology defining the
  materials-related skills a technician needs in
  today's advanced manufacturing environment
• Provide faculty with easy and direct access to
  available teaching materials that will allow them
  to introduce the required competency-related
  concepts of materials technology into their
  manufacturing and engineering technology courses

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• Provide mentoring and professional development
  opportunities for faculty members to assist them
  to better teach the basic subjects of materials
  technology to their students
• Develop the communication systems and web-based
  resources needed to create a community of users
  to disseminate and sustain the Resource Center
  activities.
• www.materialseducation.org

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COMPETENCY LIST DEVELOPMENT PROCEDURE

• Four focus groups rated materials competencies
• Seattle area
• Los Angeles area
• Detroit area
• Cleveland area
• A variety of industry types included
• Results integrated from all groups

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FOCUS GROUPS INDUSTRY TYPES

• Aerospace
• Automotive
• Materials testing
• Failure analysis
• Plastics processing
• Materials education

• Metals processing
• Basic materials
• Composites processing
• MEMS/NANO materials

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BASIC PROCESS Competency List Development

• Introductions of participants--Materials usage in
  their companies
• Discussions about differences between materials
  technicians and general technicians
• Preliminary list of competencies provided by the
  project team
• Participants requested to identify added
  competencies
• Rating of competencies

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COMPETENCY RATING PROCESS

• Rate each competency - four point scale
• 1 Vital Highest rating
• 2 Important
• 3 Desirable but not critical
• 4 Not important
• NOTE Lower numbers are better!
• Separate rating for
• General engineering technicians
• Materials technicians

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TWO SEPARATE RATINGS

• Focus groups rated preferred materials
  competencies for
• Materials engineering technicians
• Those who work in materials labs
• Those who work with materials processing
• General engineering technicians
• Support for product development
• Production operations technicians
• Test technicians, chemical technicians, etc.

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DATA ANALYSIS

• Data from all participants aggregated
• Set of competency ratings distributed to all
  participants
• Participants asked to comment
• Competency set revised
• Summary/reduced set developed
• Final results distributed to project staff,
  participants, partners

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EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS - IMPORTANT FOR BOTH GT MT

• Communication skills
• Workplace performance
• Basic mathematics
• Technical drawing
• Testing
• Data analysis

• Units and conversions
• Computer skills
• Working in teams
• Personal professionalism
• Quality management

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IMPORTANT MATERIALS-RELATED SKILLS

• Effects of defects on performance
• Effects of mfg variations on properties
• Laboratory skills
• General nature of materials metals, plastics,
  polymers, and composites
• Materials processing
• Materials testing
• Fabrication processes and tooling

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REDUCED 75 LIST

• Combinations and sub-categories created for
  presenting/reporting results 75 List
• Complete total of 397 competencies is available
  for analysis
• MatEd staff using the full set to acquire
  curriculum materials

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SUMMARY OF RESULTS

• GT MT
• Important (Green) 11 44
• Desirable (Blue) 58 31
• Less important (Red) 6 0
• Totals 75 75

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Sample results Top 75

• Communication
• Follow directions and request additional
  information as needed (1.1)
• Workplace Performance
• Practice good workplace safety methods(1.2)
• Basic Math
• Demonstrate mastery of basic arithmetic,
  including proportions, percentages, etc (1.3)

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• Use of units and conversions
• Manipulate and report accurately units for all
  calculations (1.4)
• Apply correctly appropriate units for physical
  quantities (1.7)
• Computer skills
• Avoid inappropriate usage of computer systems
  (1.4)
• Create and use spreadsheets for data analysis,
  graphing and record keeping (1.6)
• Personal professionalism
• Manage time effectively (1.5)

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Materials Topics Top 75

• Relationship between processing variables,
  quality, properties and defects
• Describe how changes in manufacturing processes
  affect materials properties (1.5)
• Describe how defects affect properties of metals
  and alloys (1.7 mt)

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• Basic materials technology
• Define stress and strain (1.4 mt)
• Describe fundamentals of a tensile test (1.4 mt)
• Describe the general nature of ferrous metals
  (1.6 mt)
• Describe how polymers differ from metals and
  ceramics (1.5 mt)

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• Manufacturing operations and quality management
• Recognize and address quality and safety issues
  (1.5)
• Differentiate between critical and non-critical
  defects (1.8)

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OTHER OBSERVATIONS

• Rating system appears appropriate
• Many raters had low expectations of technicians
  in mathematics, chemistry, and physical sciences
• Breadth of raters areas of interest was good,
  however some industries not represented
  Furniture, food, electronics, biomaterials,
  refractories
• Some low-rated competencies still important to
  some fields

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Study limitations

• Competency list development process
• Adequacy of industry groups represented
• Sample size (36 respondents)

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Future steps

• Broaden the listing to include input from a
  broader set of materials industries
• Utilize this input to develop the core curriculum
  needed by all technicians who deal with
  materials
• Develop targeted curriculum for materials
  technicians

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Access to full report

• The full report is available on line at
• http//www.materialseducation.org/
• competencies_report.html

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Contacts

• MatEd, the National Resource Center for Materials
  Technology Education
• www.materialseducation.org
• Project PI, Mel Cossette mel.cossette_at_edcc.edu
• Project director, Tom Stoebe tgstoebe_at_earthlink.ne
  t

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Acknoweldgments

• The authors wish to thank Drs John Rusin and
  Laura Collins for their input on this study,
  along with all focus group participants.
• This work was sponsored by the National Science
  Foundation Advanced Technological Education
  Program, grant DUE-0501475