SelfReflection on Professional Competences in Chemical Engineering Education

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Self-Reflection on Professional Competences in
Chemical Engineering Education

• Jetse Reijenga and Esther Vinken

j.c.reijenga_at_tue.nl
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Industrial Internship

• Compulsory for Masters degree
• 3-6 months (fulltime)
• Industrial RD or Production
• In the Netherlands or abroad (50/50)

• Technical Report
• Company Grading Form
• Final Presentation
• Self- Reflection Report

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Educational Goals

• Orientation on the chemical engineering
  profession
• Gain experience in working as a chemical engineer
  in industrial working environment
• Solve problems on a chemical engineering level,
  and thus integrating and expanding knowledge,
  technical insight, skills  and critical
  inventiveness
• Practice communication in a professional working
  environment.

http//edu.chem.tue.nl/goals
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Company Grading Form

• Attitude
• Quality of work
• Amount of work
• Relation to others
• Work independently
• Criticize own work
• Scientific knowledge
• Creativity
• Language fluency
• Communication, verbal
• Communication, written
• Overall performance

http//edu.chem.tue.nl/6Z001/eval/default.htm
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Self-Reflection Report group 1

• Guidelines make a 500-word self-reflection
  report in view of general educational goals of
  the internship
• Resulting reports were insufficient more about
  the company profile and the assignment than about
  themselves.

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Self-Reflection Report group 2

• Guidelines write a 500 word self-reflection
  report taking into account the following points
• What dit you learn about yourself?
• Did you discover unsuspected talents?
• Did you meet unexpected challenges?
• How did you deal with them
• Which personal improvement points remain?
• How dit internship broaden your view on career
  opportunities?
• Self reflection should not be about the company,
  but about you.

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Self-Reflection Report group 3

• Guidelines (in addition to those of group 2)
• Student fills in company grading form before
  internship
• Again halfway through the internship
• Again at the end of the internship
• Compare 3 self-grade forms with company form as
  an additional aid in self-reflection

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Comparison of groups

• Quality of Self-reflection reports
• Group size 19, 44 and 36 respectively

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Results of group 3 in detail
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Conclusions

• Extended guidelines improve self-reflection
  reports
• Additional self-grade forms further improve
  reports
• Even in group 3, only 50 of students make
  acceptable self-reflections, so
• Further improvement still needed.

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Recommendations

• Further emphasize self-grade forms
• Stimulate students to set personal goals, as
  SMART objectives, before starting internship
• Have SMART objectives evaluated before writing
  self-reflection

Drucker, P.F., The Practice of Management, 1954
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my bottom line
self-reflection as starting basis for a bright
career perspective
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