Essential Teambuilding Skills for Project Work in Engineering Studies

The Industry 5.0 requires new skills in a rapidly changing labor market. Generation Z is the first generation of digital natives whose skills to operate digital tools are unquestionable. At the same time, their communication, collaboration, and team-building skills lack the necessary depth to succeed in the world of work. Alongside other technological improvements, Education 4.0 has proposed the introduction of new learning and teaching methods such as project, problem, and design-based approaches. In this comparative study, the project-based approach is presented. The aim of the research was to investigate the teamwork skills of engineering students. 177 students were interviewed about how each project team works together and which skills and competences are missing to succeed together. The results of the quantitative research show that self-assessment scores in all subsamples outperformed the assessment of teams. The results can be incorporated into a future teaching methodology framework for skills development.