Identifying Nanotechnology Professional Competencies for Engineering Students Using Q Methodology

This study aimed to introduce a new approach to identifying nanotechnology competence for college engineering students' career preparation based primarily on competence-based perspectives. While Q methodology is a powerful pattern analytic for expressing opinions of specific group and gives consideration to both qualitative and quantitative advantages, it was employed as a tool to explore and highlight the unique viewpoints and patterns of nanotechnology competencies expressed by stakeholders in the industry. Forty-seven competence statements were selected as contributing to the final Q set based on the university professors and post-doc fellows' evaluation and post interviews. Then twelve professional experts in the nanotechnology industry in Taiwan were recruited to be the Q participants. Based on the results of Q sorting and discourse analysis, two factors of the subjective viewpoint toward the expected general nanotechnology competencies of university graduates were presented, namely, personal-attributes oriented and professional-skills oriented. Although the emphases were placed on dissimilar statements by different factors, it was clear that innovation, activeness and ambition, applied chemistry, and nano-optoelectronics together constructed the core nanotechnology competencies. The results provide practical and theoretical implications for engineering education in students' training and professional development.