Soft Skills of Latin American Engineering Professors: Gender Gap

The importance of soft skills in the professional work of an engineer is becoming increasingly important, even more so since the emergence of Covid-19 boosted the digitization of all professional sectors. In order for future engineers to acquire this type of skills, it is necessary for engineering professors to have an optimal level of technical and transversal skills. This article analyzes the assessment made by a group of engineering professors about their degree of development of soft skills and describes gender gaps in these assessments. Based on a self-created survey to evaluate different families of soft skills relevant to engineering education, a sample of 284 Latin American engineering professors reported: 1) high evaluations of their soft skills and 2) the existence of gender gaps in the families of work behavior and social skills in favor of females. This gap is especially wide among participants younger than 45 and older than 65 in the social skills family. In addition, females also rate their work motivation skills higher, except in the 55–64 age range.

On the Influence of the University Tenure on the Digital Pandemic Stress in Higher Education Faculty.

This paper conducts quantitative research on the levels of stress generated in Latin American professors due to the abrupt digitalization of higher education resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the differences in this digital stress between professors from private and public universities are analyzed. For this purpose, a validated questionnaire has been used and passed to a sample of 750 professors from 20 different Latin American countries, whose responses have been statistically analyzed. As results, it has been obtained that there are no significant differences between the average levels of digital stress of professors of private and public universities due to the pandemic. However, the way in which this digital stress has affected Latin American professors according to gender and age is different depending on the university tenure. As a consequence, some implications and recommendations derived from the results are presented.

Lecture Attendance among Undergraduate Business Students in Egypt: An Exploratory Study

In Egypt's higher education system, there are differences among universities about the compulsory nature of class attendance. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a transition of higher education activities to online environments, has led, after the return to face-to-face learning, to an update on the usefulness of face-to-face learning for higher education students. This work provides quantitative exploratory research on the assessment of university students in the areas of economics and business in Egypt about attendance to face-to-face lectures, its advantages and disadvantages, and the usefulness of implementing new learning methodologies within the lectures. As a result, it has been obtained that the participating students valued attendance as an important element of their learning, although they identified disadvantages in this regard. In addition, they supported the development of active and collaborative methodologies in lectures. It is proposed that this research should be extended to compare the results with those of other geographical areas, and it is suggested that universities increase the adoption of new learning methodologies through the adoption of measures, such as teacher training, in this regard.

Digital Pandemic Stress in Higher Education in Venezuela.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a great impact on the process of integrating digital technologies in higher education and caused digital stress among professors, mainly in countries with a lower level of digitalization. In this work, quantitative research was carried out on the stress of professors in Venezuela due to the digitalization of their teaching activities caused by the pandemic, and gender gaps were identified in this regard. This digital stress was compared with that of professors in other countries with a low level of digitalization. For this purpose, a questionnaire designed by the authors was used. The questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 129 Venezuelan professors and 132 professors from countries with low digitalization levels. As a result, it was found that Venezuelan professors have lower digital competence and lower digital stress than their colleagues in weakly digitized countries, and that digital stress decreases as digital competence increases. Moreover, among Venezuelan professors, there was a strong gender gap in digital stress, which was higher among females in all subject areas, except for Health Sciences. This gender gap is specific to Venezuela since it differs from that in countries with low digital levels. According to the results, we urgently recommend investing resources in the digital training of faculty members, especially in regards to the integration of female professors.

Influence of Knowledge Area on the Use of Digital Tools during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Latin American Professors

In this paper, quantitative, descriptive, and correlational research is carried out on the impact that the process of digitalization of academic activities in higher education has had on the habits of use of information and communication technologies (ICT) among professors and the influence of the area of knowledge on this impact. For this purpose, responses from 716 professors from different Latin American universities to a survey designed by the authors were statistically analyzed. Following the UNESCO guide on the use of ICT in higher education, the survey distinguishes the following teaching activities to measure the use of ICT: lessons, tutorials, sharing materials, and evaluation. The results show that the use of ICT has increased in all teaching activities, but unevenly, being particularly intense in those in which the use of ICT was less frequent during the pandemic-specifically, tutorials and evaluation, whose frequency of use has increased by around 50%. As a result of this uneven increase, the use of ICTs in different teaching activities has become more homogeneous after the pandemic. This increase was significantly higher among engineering and social sciences professors than in other areas of knowledge, as well as in evaluation and tutorial tools than in other activities. In addition, the ICT tools most used during the pandemic were those with which the professors or students were most familiar before the pandemic. It is recommended that universities increase the specific training of professors in the pedagogical use of ICT and that they should address the specificities of each area of knowledge.

Influence of Country Digitization Level on Digital Pandemic Stress.

A quick and effective solution to address the immediate change in teaching methods after the COVID-19 pandemic was digital learning environments (DLEs). The way in which this process of change towards DLEs was tackled was different around the world, depending on multiple factors, including the level of digitization, technology, and innovation. This paper conducts quantitative research on the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the adaptation of university professors to DLEs. In order to achieve this objective, a sample of 723 university professors from 15 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean was taken. The participants' self-perception of the stress generated and their levels of digital competence during the COVID-19 pandemic were studied according to the Global Innovation Index (GII) of their country of origin. The results show that professors have an intermediate-high self-perception of both their digital competence and their ability to adapt to DLEs. It is also shown that neither the professors' level of digital competence nor the GII of the country of origin fully explain the level of pandemic stress regarding the use of DLEs. This fact suggests that there must be other influential factors to consider, thus opening new lines of future research.

Impact of Using Facemasks on Literacy Learning: The Perception of Early Childhood Education Teachers

In this work, quantitative research is carried out on the importance that educators give to literacy work in early childhood education classrooms and the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic and the use of facemasks have had on it. To this end, a survey designed for this purpose has been used, which has been passed on to a set of 112 Spanish early childhood educators. The teachers surveyed occupy different positions in the classroom (tutors, support technicians, specialists in bilingualism, therapeutic pedagogy and speech and hearing), and, in addition, they themselves learned to read from different methods of literacy learning (synthetic or analytical). The results found in this study indicate that educators express intermediate evaluations of the importance of literacy work in the classroom, higher if it is done through digital resources, and higher for the synthetic method than for the analytical method. In addition, the impact of the use of masks on literacy learning was rated as very negative. On the other hand, gaps have been identified in the above perceptions by the position occupied in the classroom and by the method used to learn to read. Finally, some actions are suggested to homogenize the perceptions of the different professionals, and some lines of research are proposed.

Didactic Use of Virtual Reality in Colombian Universities: Professors’ Perspective

This paper presents quantitative research on the perception of the didactic use of virtual reality by university professors in Colombia, with special attention to the differences according to their area of knowledge, as the main variable, and gender and digital generation, as secondary variables. The study involved 204 professors from different Colombian universities. As an instrument, a survey designed for this purpose was used with four scales that were used to measure, on a Likert scale, different dimensions involving the participants’ perception of the use of virtual reality in the classroom. The answers were analyzed statistically and the differences in the perceptions have been identified by means of parametric statistical tests according to the following: (i) area of knowledge, (ii) gender, (iii) digital generation of the participants. The results showed that the participants expressed high valuations of virtual reality, despite having intermediate or low levels of digital competence. Gaps were identified in terms of area of knowledge, gender, and digital generation (digital natives or immigrants) with respect to opinions of virtual reality and digital competence. The highest valuations of virtual reality are given by professors of Humanities, and by digital natives. It is suggested that Colombian universities implement training plans on digital competence for professors and that these plans be aimed at strengthening knowledge of virtual reality.

Variables Influencing Professors' Adaptation to Digital Learning Environments during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This paper conducts quantitative research on the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the adaptation to digital learning environments (DLE) of a group of 908 university professors. We compared the perceptions of participants who were digital natives (born before 1980) with those of digital immigrants (born after 1980). For this purpose, a validated survey was used and the obtained responses statistically analyzed. The results show a negative correlation between pandemic stress and the digital competence of professors and their adaptation skills to digital environments, which although weak for both of the two groups compared are stronger for digital immigrants. Both self-confidence and digital competence show a positive influence on the perception of adaptation of skills to DLE, and this is weaker in digital natives. Gaps were identified by gender and area of knowledge of the participants; consequently, the need to carry out training actions for university faculty on skills linked to their digital competence in teaching is clear.

Digital Content Creation Tools: American University Teachers’ Perception

This paper studies the perception of Latin American university teachers about the effectiveness of digital content creation (DCC) tools for the creation of e-learning training actions. For this purpose, the opinions of a group of 564 teachers from different universities in 16 Latin American countries have been collected and their answers have been analyzed according to different sociological and academic characteristics (gender, age, teaching experience, area of knowledge, and academic degree). The results indicate that Latin American university teachers express high levels of digital training and highly value the didactic effectiveness of DCC tools to develop e-learning training actions. This valuation is significantly higher among females than males. Gender is also revealed as the most influential characteristic in the perception of teachers about the use of digital resources in the classroom, above any other aspect.

Soft Skills of American University Teachers: Self-Concept

Today, soft skills (transversal competencies) are increasingly appreciated by employers as essential skills for professional success. Likewise, these competencies are necessary to be able to operate as individuals in today’s society. In view of this situation, in the future post-COVID-19 educational model it is necessary to design training programs that promote both hard skills (specific competencies) and soft skills. This fact brings to the table the need for university teachers to have an optimal level of soft skills so that their students can acquire them. Given this situation, this paper aims to analyze the degree of acquisition of this type of competencies in American university teachers from different regions: (i) North America;(ii) Central America, and (iii) Southern Cone. To achieve this objective, it has been necessary to develop a questionnaire on the self-concept of soft skills, based on several variables: (i) gender, (ii) age range, (iii) geographic area, (iv) area of knowledge, (v) years of teaching experience, and (vi) university tenure (public-private). The questionnaire developed was based on the soft skills included in the Bochum Inventory of Personality and Competences (BIP). Results, obtained by descriptive and inferential statistical analysis of the means and deviations of the data collected from a sample of 473 participants, reflect that, in general, the American university teachers have a high self-concept about their degree of soft skills development. Although results show significant differences depending on each variable considered in this study, it can be suggested that the American university teachers are prepared to face a mixed university educational model, which promotes equally both hard skills and soft skills.

Self-Assessment of Soft Skills of University Teachers from Countries with a Low Level of Digital Competence

The lockdown of March and April 2020 as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced relevant changes in the educational environment in a very short period of time, making it necessary to suspend in-person instruction and generating the need to implement virtual learning mechanisms. In a future post-COVID-19 hybrid educational model, it will be necessary for university teachers to acquire an optimal degree of digital competence, as a combination of different competencies, namely, (i) technical, (ii) digital, and (iii) soft. Soft skills have been shown to have a decisive influence on the development of digital competence. The aim of this study was to analyze the degree of acquisition of soft skills in Latin American university teachers whose countries are less digitally developed. For this purpose, the countries with the lowest Global Innovation Index (GII) were selected: (i) Panama;(ii) Peru;(iii) Argentina;(iv) El Salvador;(v) Ecuador;(vi) Paraguay;(vii) Honduras;and (viii) Bolivia. To achieve this objective, it was necessary to develop a questionnaire on the self-concept of soft skills, based on the soft skills included in the Bochum Inventory of Personality and Competences (BIP). Results obtained from statistical analysis of the data collected from a sample of 219 participants show that university teachers are sufficiently prepared, in terms of their soft skills, for the increase in digital competence required as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, despite the low level of digital development in their respective countries.