Theme

Theme 1: Communicating with/to a

diverse audience (internally)
-

Subordinates, peers,
management, etc.

Cultural & gender differences

Use of dialects, Singlish,

English, Bahasa Malaysia,
Mandarin, etc.

Hypothesis
1. Colleagues share experience and
knowledge on a regular basis.
2. Managers need good
communication skills to guide and
supervise subordinates.
3. Managers give enough freedom
for subordinates to perform their
duties rather than micromanaging.
4. Engineers work well with
colleagues who are from different
cultural backgrounds.
5. Engineers prefer to use Singlish to
communicate with colleagues,
including foreigners.

Theme 2: Communicating with/to a

diverse audience (externally)
-

Interview Questions

1. Engineers have to communicate

with many external parties and it
can be tough.

Government bodies, clients,

investors, general public,
suppliers, contractors, etc.

2. External parties (eg. clients,

authorities, contractors) can be
quite harsh in order to have their
demands fulfilled.

Communicating to technical
and non-technical audiences

3. Engineers always deliver

1

Introduction: Can you describe your

scope of work?
1. How important is it for engineers to
share experience and knowledge among
co-workers or subordinates?
2. How do managers/supervisors/you
make sure that the right information is
communicated to their subordinates?
How do managers/supervisors/you make
sure that their subordinates are carrying
out the work as expected?

3. What are the challenges that you face

when communicating with your
customers, as they expect you to deliver
their expectations?
How do you cope with the challenges?
Can you elaborate by giving an example?
4. What do you do in order to better
promote technical solutions/products to
your customers, who may not necessarily

information in an honest way.

Cultural & gender differences

Use of dialects, Singlish,
English, Bahasa Malaysia,
Mandarin, etc.

4. Engineers have difficulties

communicating with people from
non-technical background.
5. Engineers primarily use emails to
communicate with external parties.

Theme 3: Problem solving in

engineering
- Successes & challenges in
problem solving
-

Individual/team work

Role/importance of technical
knowledge and skills in problem
solving

Typical problems across

engineering sub-disciplines

Experiential/academic
knowledge

Forms/stages of problem
representation (models, visuals,
ideation, etc.)

6. Engineers use more formal

language while communicating with
external parties.
1. Problem solving in engineering
involves a lot of communication of
ideas and exchange of information.
2. Engineers prefer individual work
to team work.
3. Engineers have to deal with
conflicting ideas in problem solving.
4. Senior engineers or managers
have more say in a team.
5. Engineers use visualization to
communicate ideas among
themselves.

have the technical knowledge?

5. Do you often encounter conflicts in

team work? (If yes)How do you resolve
the conflicts?
(If no)How do you collaborate and
integrate different ideas?
Can you elaborate by giving an example?
6. How does the knowledge/skill that you
learned in university help you in your
work?
What are the skills that are particularly
helpful?
7. Do employers prefer engineers with
working experience or engineers with
higher level of education (postgraduate)?
Why?

Theme 4: The future of engineering

-

Contributions of engineers
to society/country/science,
etc. beyond specific jobs or
tasks such as designing a
product, building or system
Educating future engineers
Lifelong learning/on-the-job
training
The Grand Challenges for
Singapore and her global
partners?

1. Engineers have an impact on the

future.
2. Engineers have a say in a
countrys development.
3. Engineers need better education
in communication skills.
4. Engineers have to engage in
lifelong learning to tackle future
challenges.

8. Engineering is a fast-changing field

with emerging challenges every now and
then, how do you prepare/equip yourself
to face the challenges ahead?
9. What are the skills that should be
better cultivated among university
students to better equip them for the
industry?
10. What are your aspirations as an
engineer?