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Developing and evaluating risk awareness in undergraduates studying mechanical engineering at UCT

Developing and evaluating risk awareness in undergraduates studying mechanical engineering at UCT. G.S. Langdon 1,2 *, P.G. Mufamadi 1 , K.J . Balchin 1 & C.J. von Klemperer 1 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, UCT 2 Centre for Research in Engineering Education, UCT. Outline.

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Developing and evaluating risk awareness in undergraduates studying mechanical engineering at UCT

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  1. Developing and evaluating risk awareness in undergraduates studying mechanical engineering at UCT G.S. Langdon1,2*, P.G. Mufamadi1, K.J. Balchin1& C.J. von Klemperer1 1Department of Mechanical Engineering, UCT 2Centre for Research in Engineering Education, UCT

  2. Outline • Background - why this is important? • How do we evaluate student risk awareness? • Results • Interventions we have made • Future plans

  3. Background – Risk awareness • Hazard is the potential to cause harm; riskis the likelihood of harm (in defined circumstances, and usually qualified by some statement of the severity of the harm). • Mechanical Engineering graduates should be trained to work in situations that require them to understand and evaluate risks and take appropriate action. • Common objection: is this our responsibility?

  4. Fitting it all in “And how is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?” Homer Simpson

  5. Accreditation requirements • Outcomes based education defines measurable graduate attributes or outputs (exit level outcomes, or competencies) that must be achieved in order for students to graduate from a degree programme. • Worldwide, the professional education bodies for engineering have embraced the concept of outcomes (or competencies) as the only approach to determining the equivalency of an engineering graduate (and therefore the engineering programme). • At UCT, this involves a 5 yearly cycle of accreditation visits by the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) where we present evidence that our Mechanical Engineering graduates are meeting the ten ECSA exit level outcomes.

  6. ECSA requirements • From: Engineering Council of South Africa (2004) Whole qualification standard for bachelor of science in engineering/bachelors of engineering, PE-61/E-02-PE Revision 2.

  7. Developing engineering identity • Recently, CREE produced a position paper on learning and concluded that learning in HEIs involves the development of discursive identity in graduates • “becoming” an engineer – learning to think, speak, act and behave like an engineer Legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice is a good way to develop discursive identity Health, safety and the environment are an integral part of an engineering job In other words, we must let them practice so they can pull it off when they graduate

  8. Evaluating risk awareness • A risk awareness survey developed at the University of Liverpool was modified for use at UCT (with permission), using the following criteria: • must be easily understood by students whose first language is not English; • must have information relevant to South Africa (e.g. legislation); • must be limited to risk in engineering (rather than risk in everyday life); • must contain questions that can be completed within 15 minutes; • results should be comparable to those obtained by UOL (Schleyeret al. 2007); • must meet the ethical standards of UCT.

  9. Survey tool • The survey had questions in five areas: • Concepts of hazard, safety and risk as part of everyday life. • Knowledge of an engineer’s professional responsibility. • Principles of hazard identification and risk assessment • Techniques for reducing and controlling risk • Potential exposure to hazards and risk in the workplace. • Students from 1st, 2nd and 3rd year undergraduate Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering degree programmes were asked to participate on a voluntary basis. • Results were compared to those obtained from 1st year students at the University of Liverpool

  10. Survey questions

  11. Survey results – overall performance

  12. Survey results – by topic

  13. Survey results – by question

  14. Survey results – pass or fail? • However one measures success or failure, there is clearly a problem, either with the survey tool or the student awareness of risk and related health and safety concepts • There is a clear improvement in the 3rd year UCT student results • The Liverpool students fare much better than UCT students • UOL = first year University of Liverpool student data

  15. Analysis of survey responses • Three of the questions are acknowledged to have debatable answers, with some disagreement between safety experts as to the correct option (both in the UK and South Africa) • Students exhibited poor understanding of risk reduction and risk control measures • Students performed best on hazard identification in the workplace

  16. Analysis of survey responses • Improvements in 3rd year performance were attributed to the 3rd year design curriculum which formally covers certain aspects of risk awareness, including the ones showing improved performance The development of a completely new survey is underway at present. Results were compared to those obtained from our graduate exit survey in 2010.

  17. Exit survey on graduation

  18. Exit survey on graduation

  19. Interventions • Already implemented: • Implementation of a formal risk assessment process at final year project level • Incorporating safety talks in each year from a safety expert, linked to the EBE faculty annual safety week. • Compulsory attendance at the workshop safety training afternoon for final year undergraduate students • However, what we really need is a change in the curriculum – to fully embed these concepts in our students

  20. Interventions • For the future: • Embedding risk concepts into all years, from entry through to exit level: • Curriculum review (currently ongoing) - incorporating health, safety and risk education into more fully into our undergraduate curriculum, including formal lectures in a new course on Engineering Professionalism • Continue to develop UCT’s own evaluation tools to assess student risk awareness • Looking at horizontal and vertical coherence of “golden strands” like risk through our degree progression

  21. Thank you for your attention… please complete a risk assessment before driving home.. In South Africa, there were 10837 fatal car crashes in 2009. This resulted in 13768 fatalities. 4927 of the fatalities were pedestrians, 258 were cyclists www.arrivealive.co.za

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