Technical Communication, Engineering, and ABET's Engineering Criteria 2000: What Lies Ahead?
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc/2002/00000049/00000001/art00008
  access restricted (by the publisher) to members/subscribers/customers only
  peer-reviewed

Williams, Julia M.
Technical Communication Online
2002

Abstract:

The tools engineers use have changed so dramatically over the past 30 years, universities and colleges have adapted by offering their engineering students classes in the latest technologies so they are better prepared to enter the engineering workplace. Engineers often feel less prepared, however, for the nontechnical demands of their jobs. They may possess the technical skills necessary to solve a machine problem in a manufacturing line but feel less prepared to tell the owners of the line what needs to be changed and why. As a result, industry and business have complained to universities and colleges (and particularly to engineering programs) that engineering students are not ready to take on the nontechnical challenges of modern engineering work. And because engineering programs rely on industry and businesses to hire their students, they have taken these demands seriously.