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WIP: Introducing Negotiating Skills in Capstone Course

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Conference

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual On line

Publication Date

June 22, 2020

Start Date

June 22, 2020

End Date

June 26, 2021

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary Endeavors: Engineering and Liberal Arts

Tagged Division

Multidisciplinary Engineering

Page Count

10

DOI

10.18260/1-2--35551

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/35551

Download Count

457

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Paper Authors

biography

Katie Zoe Loughmiller Kansas State University

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Katie Loughmiller is an Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science at Kansas State University holding the Martin K. Eby Distinguished Professorship. Her research areas include construction scheduling and operations, and retention and recruitment of women and minorities into the building industry. Her teaching focus is construction operations and scheduling

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Abstract

Employers of graduates from STEM programs at universities across the U.S. are reporting a lack of “soft skills” in their new hires. Those “soft skills” include leadership, teamwork, communication, problem solving, and interpersonal skills. Due to pressures at the university-level to reduce the number of credit hours required for graduation, many of the courses that previously address these “soft skills” have been eliminated from STEM degree programs. In order to address the need voiced by employers of the graduates of these programs, these soft skills must be incorporated into existing technical courses. As a component of the capstone course “soft skills” lessons have been incorporated to facility the needs addressed by industry. This research specifically addresses the introduction of negotiation skills as a course topic. The course content includes a 50-minute class period that exposes students to the elements of negotiation through an engaging and interactive activity. In addition to the in-class activity, students are assessed both prior to and after the class period to identify their personal experiences with negotiating. Data collection from this assessment will provide valuable information about student’s ability and comfort level with negotiating. Collection of data is currently in a pilot study, with the first semester of data being collected in Spring 2020.

Loughmiller, K. Z. (2020, June), WIP: Introducing Negotiating Skills in Capstone Course Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35551

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