The Value of Humanities Components in Engineering Curricula: Evaluating a Japanese History Module in the Context of SIT’s Innovative Global Program

This study focuses on the usefulness of humanities components in higher education engineering programs, in the context of nurturing ‘global engineers’ with broad skillsets and cultural sensitivity. What is the significance of humanities courses, when it comes to the goal of equipping new engineers to succeed in today’s interconnected global society? We carried out the study on a Japanese History module, which forms part of the Innovative Global Program (IGP) at Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT). Our research analyses whether studying this module was correlated with noticeable changes in students’ ‘global competence’, as measured using the ‘MGUDS-S’ assessment tool. Results collated over three semesters showed that in each case there was a statistically-significant increase in participants’ global competence scores.