A Study on Effect of Generic Management Skills on Logical Thinking Skills in Systems Engineering Exploration

Because of the era of industry 4.0 in Thailand, engineering students need to understand and apply both specific and generic skills such as digital and coding skills, problem-solving. Logical thinking skills are a basic concept of both skills. A challenge for developing those essential skills is a lack of continuity in practicing. The Systems Engineering Exploration course was designed to be a beginning point in the first semester for first-year students. In this research, we applied a problem-based learning approach to practice logical thinking skills and used generic management skills as a learning tool. There are two assignments with different purposes. The first assignment aims to create a problem-solver while the goal of the other assignment is to cultivate an innovation mindset with a small creative project. We assessed the learning outputs of both individual and group work and the learning process with their teamwork skills and interaction. Our results show that the first-year students can improve logical thinking skills within the assignment period.