The successful implementation of the engineering projects in Cambodia and Rwanda with non-engineering students working side by side with engineering students vindicated our belief that non-engineering are capable of successfully carrying out an engineering projects if the projects are well-chosen, well-planned and the students well-trained. As for themselves, the non-engineering students pick up basic engineering skills that they never thought they were capable of. In the process they develop new-found respect and appreciation for engineering, as well as self-confidence in themselves. It can only be good for themselves, their career, and society as a whole. These pleasing outcomes are not originally part of the service-learning curriculum but are gratifying nevertheless.
The intended student learning outcomes designed for the courses themselves were fully evaluated with three approaches: (1) grading by the teaching team according to the subject rubrics, (2) self-reported post-experience survey and (3) reflective journals submitted after the completion of the projects. The subject grading is composed of three components corresponding to the three phases of the services: preparation, execution, and reflection. Each student was accessed by the two subject teachers and two tutors individually, and a meeting was organized to finalize the overall grade, reconciling differences between the marks assigned by the different members of the teaching team. This is important to ensure consistency and fairness across all components, students and graders.
Regarding the grading, engineering students received a slightly higher grade on average than the non-engineering students. However, the standard deviation in all aspects of the non-engineering group is higher. Among the top 20% of the students, 11 of them are non-engineering students while 6 of them are engineering students. Hence the best of the non-engineering students perform just as well as the engineering students, if not better. This situation also happens to the bottom 20% of the team, in which 3 students are non-engineering and 14 of them are students in technical disciplines.
Demonstration of empathy, intellectual and civic learning outcomes scales were found to be highly reliable while demonstration of application of knowledge and skills and understanding of the linkage between SL and academic learning can be considered as having an acceptable reliability. Data on two of the learning outcomes (Self-reflection and Social) suggested that the reliabilities of those sub-scales are marginally acceptable.
Among the eight learning outcomes, the mean score is highest for the personal aspect for both engineering students and non-engineering students. Whereas the mean score on self-reflection is the lowest - but which is still significantly higher than the mid-point 4 (“a fair amount”). The standard deviations of the scores ranged from 0.58 to 0.79 for the engineering group and 0.56 to 0.86 for the non-engineering group. Four learning outcomes have a higher rating from non-engineering students while two outcomes have a higher rating from engineering students. However, the differences are small.
In conclusion, statistically, no significant differences exist between the two groups. Ditto from the reflection journals. It shows that the multidisciplinary approach can benefit both the engineering and non-engineering students. What makes this work are the engineering professors and their assistants who are willing to work extra hard, to take on the additional challenge and prevail. They are truly passionate educators deserving the utmost respect. These results were published in the following conference paper: Lo, K. W. K., Lau, C. K., Chan, S. C. F. & Ngai, G. “When Non-engineering Students work on an International Service-Learning Engineering Project – A Case Study”, 2017 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2017), San Jose, October 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment