Towards Developing Empathetic Young Engineers for Rural Road Project Management

EasyChair Preprint 6230, version 1

Abstract

Opening up rural areas through road construction will not only improve livelihoods but also unlock opportunities for employment creation as a crucial and vital component of poverty eradication.  Unfortunately, we are constantly been reminded at the project management engineering failure happening in the rural areas.  Previous research had shown that there is an interaction between good project and empathy.  In the absence of the vital experiences of working in the rural area, learning to be empathetic can help young engineers to face extreme challenges in managing unique challenging projects and further contribute to good projects.  By conceptualizing the empathy aspect of the technical Guideline for the Design of Low Volume Rural Road (LVRR) document and the experienced practice engineer involved in the program, the analysis of these implicit and explicit empathy designs will be used to develop empathetic training module.  The absence of any prior research that conceptualized empathy of the LVRR guideline indicate that this will be a step forward in the attempt to inculcate empathetic skill through online module which initiative is in considerations of cost and logistic issues faced at the rural area. This online module is a viable alternative to printed modules as physical training is not feasible at this time of coronavirus outbreak that had caused the majority of people working remotely.  The development of the formative online competency module for empathetic young engineers is part of the enhancement of technical skill and as a solution to a widening gap of understanding between the engineering project management such as design and planning and the users need for a sustainable project management in the rural area.

Keyphrases: Competency, Empathetic, Low Volume Rural Road, Young Engineer, online module

@booklet{EasyChair:6230,
  author    = {Norwati Mohamad Ali and Yusouf Latif and Alexa Ray Fernando and Abdelrahim Mohamed Minalla and Chin Chia Yuan and Syed Ahmad Helmi Al Hadad and Khairiyah Mohd Yusof},
  title     = {Towards Developing Empathetic Young Engineers for Rural Road Project Management},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 6230},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2021}}