|93%|Teamwork|Teamwork|79%|
|---|---|---|---|
|85%|Apply math, science, and<br>engineeringknow.|Apply math, science, and<br>engineeringknow.|78%|
|84%|Communicate effectively|Use modern engineeringtools|77%|
|83%|Use modern engineeringtools|Understand professional and<br>ethical responsibilities|73%|
|83%|Design and conduct experiments|Design a system to meet needs|66%|
|80%|Engineering problem solving|Lifelong-learning|60%|
|75%|Design a system to meet needs|Design and conduct experiments|59%|
|71%|Knowledge of Contemporary<br>issues|Knowledge of Contemporary<br>issues|25%|

Source: Authors for India and Lattuca, Terenzini, Volkwein study for ABET 2006 for the US.

Note: Year of survey for the US was 2004 and 2009 for India. The both surveys asked employers to rate the importance on a five-point scale. The wording of the US scale differed marginally from the Indian survey. Whereas the top two most importance categories in the Indian scale was "Very or Extremely", the two highest importance levels were termed "Highly Important or Essential".

A similarity in the demand for skills would suggest that employers in India and the US share the same perception of skill set that an engineering graduate should learn.<sup>10</sup> This would support the value of having common standards in engineering education as sought by the accrediting bodies that are members of the Washington Accord. A similarity in demand would also suggest that the factors driving skill demand in the two countries: technologies, competitiveness, and composition of economic sectors are relatively similar in the two countries.

**_Soft Skills vs. Professional Skills (Importance)_** : Many employers emphasized the importance of soft skills during interviews.  Also other studies have discussed that many employers spend significant amount of resources to provide employees with training for improvement in not only technical but also soft skills, for example (Wadhwa, Kim de Vitton, Gereffi, 2008).  Therefore, we test the importance of _Soft Skills_ relative to _Professional Skills_ .  When discussing soft skills, communication skills are often part of soft skills.  Therefore, a variable _Soft Skills_ is created by combining _Core Employability Skills_ with _Communication Skills_ variables.  Then, the following assumption is statistically tested: ― _Employers perceive Soft Skills as more important than Professional Skills_ ‖.  In order to verify the assumption above, a t-test is conducted with a null hypothesis that the mean of _Soft Skills_ is the same as that of _Professional Skills_ in terms of the importance level.  In other words, do employers perceive that _Soft Skills_ and _Professional Skills_ are equally important?  The result of the t-test in Table A2-8 in Annex 2 suggests that we reject the null hypothesis and shows that the mean of _Soft Skills_ is significantly higher than that of _Professional Skills_ in importance level.  The mean of _Soft Skills_ is 4.15 (0.03) while that of _Professional Skills_ is 3.98 (0.05).<sup>11</sup> The probability of the null hypothesis is less

> 10 Although the two survey questionnaires are almost identical, the interfered comparison of skills demanded in the two countries may not be comparable. This is the case if the response on importance is influenced by the skill set of available engineers in each country. For instance, if a large share of Indian employers rate lifelong learning skills ―very important‖ because that skill is in short supply; while a lower share of US employers rate lifelong learning skills ―very important‖, because graduating engineers in the US possess this skills.

> 11 The figures in the parentheses are standard deviations.

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