EVALUATION OF LEARNING OUTCOMES IN CDIO PROGRAMME WITHIN CIVIL ENGINEERING

EVALUATION OF LEARNING OUTCOMES IN CDIO PROGRAMME WITHIN CIVIL ENGINEERING

A. Krogsbøll, J. Christensen, P. Hussmann (2010).  EVALUATION OF LEARNING OUTCOMES IN CDIO PROGRAMME WITHIN CIVIL ENGINEERING. 18.

 

The CDIO approach to engineering education was implemented at all bachelor of engineering programmes at Technical University of Denmark (DTU) starting from the fall semester 2008. The study programme within civil engineering starts twice a year in September and February, and at summer 2010 a total of approximately 200 students have completed their 1st semester on the CDIO version of the programme. The current version of the programme is briefly described in the paper with focus on the Design-build projects and the CDIO – project based courses.

 

We asked students from the first class in 2008 to fill in a questionnaire about learning environment and their learning outcome related to the CDIO project in 1st semester. The questionnaire was a supplement to another one, which is used for all courses at the university as a standard evaluation form, [1], [2]. The students were asked to fill in the questionnaire during the final part of the semester (December 2008).The results from those evaluations were used to improve the first semester project course, which as a consequence is modified slightly every time, [1].

 

During the spring semester 2010 the students from the first class are studying their 4th semester and work on a new design-build project. They were asked to fill in a new questionnaire and some of the students were interviewed too. Students’ learning outcomes and their experiences with engineering methods were evaluated in the new questionnaire and the interviews. Focus was on students’ reflections on how and what they learned, and also what motivates learning. We learned that the Design-build activities and interdisciplinary projects help students to learn thinking and working as engineers, but also that we can still improve. We also learned that coherence between activities in different courses running simultaneously could be improved.

 

We work continuously on improvements of the individual courses and the entire programme. Basically, the development is based on guidelines as described in a local handbook for CDIO implementation at DTU, [3], which again is based on the general CDIO approach, [4]. Experiences with the CDIO-concept in the civil engineering programme at DTU are still few, and we have therefore chosen to work in several areas: One is the students’ motivation, another is alignment and evaluation of individual courses and the third is enthusiasm of the teachers. All three areas are considered to be important for students’ learning outcome. This was confirmed in the evaluation.

 

Authors (New): 
Anette Krogsbøll
Jørgen Erik Christensen
Peter Munkebo Hussmann
Pages: 
18
Affiliations: 
Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Keywords: 
learning outcomes
Evaluation methods
Civil Engineering
students’ experience
Programme development
Year: 
2010
Reference: 
Christensen, J.E., Rode, C. and Borchersen, E. “Development of evaluation procedure for effective implementation of CDIO”. Proceedings of the 5’th international CDIO Conference, Singapore Polytechnics, Singapore, 2009.: 
Friis-Hansen, P., Houbak, N. and Klit P. ”Evaluation of course evaluations”. Proceedings from 1st International CDIO conference, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario Canada, June 7-8, 2005. pp1-9.: 
Handbook for CDIO implementation at Bachelor of Engineering Programmes at DTU. (In Danish). Technical University of Denmark, 2009.: 
Crawley, E., Malmquist, J., Ôstlund, S. and Brodeur, D. “Rethinking Engineering Education – The CDIO Approach”. Springer, New York. 2007. : 
Schuman, Howard & Stanley Presser. “Questions and answers in attitude surveys. Experiments on question form, wording and context”, Sage Publications, 1996.: 
Biggs, J. & Tang, C. “Teaching for Quality Learning at University”. Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press, 2007.: 
Gibbs, G. “Assessing student centered courses”. Oxford Brookes University, 1995.: 
Kolb, D.A. “Experiential Learning”. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall, 1984.: 
Bowden, J., Hart, G., King, B., Trigwell, K. & Watts, O. “Generic capabilities of ATN university graduates”. Canberra: Australian Government Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 2000. : 
Nair, S., Adams, P., Meritova, P. “Student engagement: The key to Improving Survey Response Rates”. Quality in Higher Education. Vol. 14, no 3. Routledge, 2008.: 
Marton, F. & Booth, S. “Learning And Awareness”. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, INC, 1997: 
Buckingham, Alan & Peter. “The survey methods workbook”. Sauders, 2004. Polity.: 
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