Behavioral effects on the participation of students in research projects at the area of mechanical engineering

Abstract

The present work exposes, by means of theoretical and practical foundations, the exploratory results on the: academic and behavioral effects from the participation of students in the research projects. The data was collected from three ongoing research projects within the Mechanical Engineering Area, where three project managers, eight teachers, twelve undergraduate students and four graduate students participate, obtaining 76% of acceptance of responses from the total number of respondents. In order to evaluate the effects a survey has been prepared covering the following aspects: research skills; soft skills development; hard skills development; and motivation. The results of the applied survey are presented where it can be glimpse a positive effect in the development of your competences measured from four fundamental aspects for your professional performance such as: contents, your personal, motivational and sentimental resources. Keywords: Hard skills, soft skills, T educational methodology, problem-based learning