ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN ENGINEERING AS A FACTOR INFLUENCING A CHOICE OF STUDIES AT VOCATIONAL SCHOOL AND FUTURE CAREER IDEAS OF STUDENTS

Abstract

As regards the field of mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence covers the use of digital technology, automation and robotisation and creates conditions for the digital connection of production processes, which has been called the fourth industrial revolution, and all such functioning processes represent Industry 4.0. Nowadays, global producers of mechanical engineering technology offer the so-called smart technologies, covering all kinds of modern technologies for metal machining, which are at the heart of every industrial production. The aim of this study was to examine whether the current possibilities of automation and robotisation as components of artificial intelligence in the engineering production influence the choice of a secondary school in primary school pupils and the extent of pupils’ preference to apply digital technologies in the engineering production in their future work. The study also investigated whether respondents’ answers are influenced by the year of study at secondary school and their subjectively assessed level of digital competences. The analysis of answers from 320 pupils from two secondary mechanical engineering schools showed that almost 40 % of pupils were positively influenced by the possibilities of automation and robotisation in the engineering production and 70 % of respondents wish their work would be related to the application of digital technologies in the engineering production to at least a certain extent. Using the chi-squared test, we found out that the motivation when choosing a secondary school based on the possibility to use automation and robotisation in the engineering production has a significant impact on students’ wish to work with digital technologies in their future work. The same test also proved a significant dependency between pupils’ self-assessment of digital competences and their wish to use digital technologies in their future work.