A necessidade de analisar os fatores que impactam na qualidade do ensino superior levou a pesquisas em documentos eletrônicos e livros. Foi aplicado um questionário aberto com 154 perguntas feitas a 80 alunos que deu origem a 33 itens e um questionário fechado. Utilizando a análise de correlação, observou-se que os dados apurados são fracamente correlacionados, com poucas correlações acima de 0,5, inviabilizando tal aplicação. Como alternativa, foi aplicada a técnica de agrupamento de variáveis (dendograma) que embora tenham-se formado alguns agrupamentos de variáveis correspondentes, a porcentagem foi muito abaixo do esperado. A análise semântica, que compara as variáveis agrupando-as por semelhança mostrou ser a melhor fórmula para identificar os fatores que impactam na qualidade do ensino: a competência dos professores, mestres e doutores, e a infraestrutura da instituição que influencia para que o aluno adquira ou aperfeiçoe seus conhecimentos. / The need to analyze the factors that impact the quality of higher education has led to research into electronic documents and books. An open questionnaire with 154 questions to 80 students who gave birth to 33 items and a closed questionnaire was applied. Using correlation analysis, it was observed that the data gathered are weakly correlated with few correlations above 0.5, preventing such an application. Alternatively, it was applied to variable clustering technique (dendogram) that although they have been formed some corresponding variables groups, the percentage was much lower than expected. Semantic analysis, which compares the variables grouping them by similarity proved to be the best formula to identify the factors that impact the quality of education: competence of teachers, teachers and doctors, and the infrastructure of the institution that influences so that students acquire or perfect their knowledge.

The current workforce climate has naturally led the way for wanting more systemic thinking individuals. This increasing complexity demands that universities train engineering students to be able to handle such difficulties amidst the interconnectedness of the world. This study aims to aid in understanding what will help the future leaders of the world become more equipped to handle these global and complex systems. College engineering students were the target population of this study. It was found that neither gender, educational level, grade point average, nor having an internship or co-op helped aid students to have higher systems thinking skills. However, employment status was found to affect the systems thinking skills scores. Laying the foundation for understanding engineering students’ ability to be more or less holistic thinkers, this research aims to help evolve engineering education.