The Study On Cultivation Of Full-Time Engineering Graduate Students’ Practical Ability

As a product of postgraduates structural adjustment in higher engineering education reform, full-time engineering masters have received many concerns. Practical ability is an important part of full-time engineering masters’ comprehensive abilities, exerting a negligible impact on the overall quality of full-time engineering masters. While the specific content and structure of full-time engineering masters’ practical ability haven’t been clearly defined, " theory important, practice unimportant " has been a common phenomenon. The cultivation of full-time engineering masters’ practical ability is severely tested.This research focuses on "how to enhance the practical ability of full-time engineering master" and tries to fully analyze the following questions: What kind of practical ability framework should full-time engineering masters have to meet employer’s practical ability demand? What is the current level of full-time engineering masters’ practical ability?What kind of problems exist in cultivating full-time engineering masters’ practical ability?(3) How to make positive steps to develop and enhance full-time engineering masters’ practical ability in consideration of the training process of full-time engineering masters?Firstly, this research preliminary designs indicators of full-time engineering masters’ practical ability and defines the concept of practical ability. The full-time engineering masters’ practical ability is a kind of ability to apply professional knowledge and skills to solve problems independently or cooperatly and design or improve products and technology. Secondly, based on practical ability demands of employers, this research conducts a survey on personnels and students to construct the framework of full-time engineering masters’ practical ability, containing engineering cognitive and design ability, team management and collaboration ability, engineering communication and application ability and information processing and learning ability through exploratory factor analysis.On the basis of constructing the practical ability framework, this research analyses the practical ability level and problems existing in cultivation processes. The study finds that practical ability shares few differences in the industry and the size distribution, while there are large differences in the grade distribution. Among the four kind of practical abilites,the biggest difference is information processing and learning ability as well as engineering communication and application ability. There are problems like: training courses don’t have prominent presence features, dual mentoring regulation and evaluation of professional practice are not really implemented in cultivation processes. Finally, this study put forward that rationality of curriculum should be emphasized, mentors’ instruction on practice should be strengthened, construction of practical base should be promoted and the whole control of professional process should be improved in order to strengthen the training of full-time engineering master’s practical ability.