Social Skills In Incoming Engineering Students From A Public University, Lima-Peru

Abstract

Social skills understood as the quick, appropriate and effective way to communicate with others do not develop in everyone in the same way. In the case of engineering students, it is considered that they have fewer social skills. The research aims to verify whether engineering students at a public university in Lima, Peru, possesses these social skills. To do this, the questionnaire “Multidimensional determination of social skills” (Goldstein, 1989) was used, in its six dimensions. We worked with 203 first-year engineering students. The results indicate that first-year engineering students show a predominance of social skills in the indicator of quite often at 77.8 %, followed by many times at 19.2 %. It is concluded that 97 % of incoming engineering students at a national university present social skills. Regarding the dimensions, it can be seen that all of them have considerable social abilities. Skills to cope with stress, by

76.4 %; advanced social skills, by 73.4 %; skills related to feelings by 68.0 %; basic social skills or first social skills by 66.5%; alternative skills to aggression, by 62.0 %; and planning skills, by 60.6 %. It can be deduced that facing demanding entrance exams develops the ability to manage stress; and, on the other hand, they must enhance their ability to plan.