STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF WAYS TO LEARN ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS: ARE THESE WAYS CDIO-RELATED?

1. STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF WAYS TO LEARN ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS: ARE THESE WAYS CDIO-RELATED? Low-Ee Huei Wuan, SP Wong Khoon Yoong, NIE

2. Introduction • There had been many research studies on learning experiences of students in higher education (Biggs, 2003; Entwistle, 1997) • Surface or deep approaches to learning depending on workload and teaching (Marton & Saljo, 1976) • Relevant to CDIO Standard 8 (active learning)

3. This presentation • Learning experiences of SP students • Data collected before SP adopted CDIO Initiative • Will suggest several areas of implementing active learning, based on students’ perspective, rather than those of faculty or standards-setters

4. Literature review 1/2 • Active learning possible even with lecture as teaching method (Struyven, Dochy & Janssens, 2008) • Key is in prompt, and quality feedback on student work (ibid.) • Requirement of feedback for student is found in CDIO Standard 8

5. Literature review 2/2 • Students may not recognise objectives of tasks as planned by lecturers (Bell, Crust, Shannon & Swan, 1993) • Students’ perceptions may differ amongst themselves, and with lecturer (Shimizu, 2002, Low-Ee & Wong, 2008)

6. Participants • 235 Year 2 Engineering Mathematics students • Pre-SSQ (Student Study Questionnaire) administered in May 2007 • Post-SSQ at end Oct 2007

7. Instrument 1/2 • 57 6-point Likert-type items • Conscientious Effort: 13 items • Metacognition: 15 items • Involving others: 15 items • Resources for learning: 10 items • Miscellaneous: 4 items

8. Instrument 2/2 • Frequency of use: “How often did you learn in this way?” (1 = Not at all; 2 = Occasionally; 3 = Sometimes; 4 = Quite often; 5 = Often; 6 = Always); • Helpfulness: “How helpful it was towards learning Maths 1/2?” (1= Waste of time; 2 = Of little help; 3 = Some help; 4 = Quite helpful; 5 = Helpful; 6 = Very helpful).

9. Findings: Frequency of use • Mean of 1.64 to 4.24: occasional to quite often • None of the study behaviour were used very often, or always • SD of 1.11 to 1.67: variation in use of study behaviour

10. Findings: Helpfulness • Mean of 2.01 to 4.27: little help to quite often • None of the study behaviour were helpful or very helpful • SD of 1.28 to 1.66: study behaviours more helpful to some students and less so for others

11. Table 1Top four items in terms of frequency of use

12. Table 2 Top four metacognitive items

13. Table 3Bottom four items in terms of frequency of use

14. Table 4Four items Maths 1 means higher than Maths 2

15. Table 5Four items Maths 1 means lower than Maths 2

16. Figure 1: Bar charts of frequency and helpfulness

17. Concluding Remarks 1/4 • Study provided empirical data about learning experience at SP • Students generally made use of traditional study behaviours – typical of students who focus on getting good grades • Objective of doing well in traditional assessment

18. Concluding Remarks 2/4 • Slightly lower means in traditional study behaviour for Maths 2 • Slightly higher mean for metacognitive behaviour in Maths 2, although not significant • Interactions with others during learning not common • Use of technology resources and library books was quire rare

19. Concluding Remarks 3/4 • Enriching curriculum with more experiential, industry-related tasks • Students to solve real problems • Include modelling using technology • Include learning activities involving others • New activities to be infused explicitly but slowly

20. Concluding Remarks 4/4 • For staff development in Standard 10 of CDIO Initiative, teaching staff to be encouraged to conduct action research • One feasible area is to gather data on student learning in order to better match the planned learning experiences to student preferences of learning

21. Feedback • Appreciate input from audience • Observations that I might have missed? • Comments?

22. Thank you Huei Wuan: lowhw@sp.edu.sg