Innovation Level Amongst Engineering And Non-Engineering Undergraduate Students In One Of The University In Malaysia

Engineers of the future must be capable of working successfully in multidisciplinary teams. Consequently, to advance innovative endeavours, engineering education and training should be considered in economic policies. The purpose of this study was to determine the significance of differences in innovation capabilities between engineering and non-engineering students. The research design is quantitative, using a questionnaire as the research instrument. The population were undergraduate students at a Malaysian university. Only 223 out of 370 respondents provided feedback within two weeks of data collection. 117 were non-engineering students, and the other 106 were engineering students. To measure the differences between the two groups of students, an inferential t-test was used. The Rasch analysis approach was applied to analyse the profiles of the students. The results showed that the innovation level of engineering students was greater than that of non-engineering students. Nonengineering students demonstrate marginally more (n=105, 47.09%) than engineering students (n=99, 44.39%) in “Very High Levels” of innovation. As a result, engineering education has grown and increased demand to efficiently train a diverse group of engineers for these challenges. 
Keywords: innovation; independent sample t test; engineering students;nonengineering students; Rasch analysis; profile