abstract
- © 2021 Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions. All rights reserved.The soft skills required in the Fourth Industrial Revolution make the traditional logical-scientific thought modality (used in engineering teaching methods) insufficient for the degree of innovation and disruption required by the international labor agenda. That is why the need arises to consider specific educational innovations for the new curricular programs that mean an improvement in training and study plans. Universities and other institutions of higher education are at this time with a double commitment: to meet the needs and requirements raised by employers and flexibly adapt andragogic approaches to their teaching-learning techniques. The present work shows the results and findings of the educational implementation of different cognitive theories, specifically adapted for engineering students belonging to the Y/Z generations, who received specialized instruction in the narrative-creative thinking modality to: acquire transversal competences of a high degree of innovation and integrate flexible and divergent perspectives. The research was carried out with an experimental mixed methodology on a sample of 601 students, who were evaluated with different types of instruments to know the level of acquisition of eight transversal competences. The analysis of the results obtained in twelve semesters shows that the designed approach promoted the desired skills among engineering students, with a better understanding of scientific concepts and additionally, a greater capacity and intellectual commitment to transform ideas and solutions.