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Motivation, study strategies and expectations of engineering students
Author
Chin, Edward Hsi Ling
Supervisor
Chang, Agnes Shook Cheong
Abstract
This is a study on the students' study behaviours and the expectations of final year electrical and electronic engineering students at School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) m Nanyang Technological University. The project is conducted to fulfill the requirement of the course "The Postgraduate Diploma of Teaching in Higher Education Program" conducted in year 1994195.
For most EEE graduates, this degree is probably the last stage of 'regular' education, he or she, is going to receive before they enter their working careers. Hence, the ultimate objective of an university education must be to provide them with the ability to pursue an interesting, rewarding and contributing life-long career. It is well known that the immediate aims of an university education are acquiring useful knowledge and skills to deal with and solve daily and present problems. However, in a fast developing engineering field like electronics, the knowledge acquired and skills learned can be obsolete in a short span of five years. In order to progress and survive in this competitive area, the candidate must possess deep motives and be able to initiate the learning process by himself or herself. The objectives of this project are to understand the motivation, study behaviours and the strategies used by these third and final year students and their expectations and understandings of their future careers. Other than having a better understanding of their study methods, motives and their expectations and aspirations for the future, this project also tries to investigate. if there exist any connections between these two areas to indicate the usefulness and successfulness of an university education. This report consists of five chapters. The first chapter begins with a brief description of the objectives of the study, followed by a discussion of the present education system in Singapore and the possible effects on the study behaviours of students. The third part of chapter one gives a general outline on the course structure in School of EEE in NTU and their assessment methods. This provides a general background on the educational system those students had passed through. The second chapter provides a brief literature review on the relevant topics concerning the motives, study strategies, learning styles and some studies conducted on Asian students. The third chapter discusses the methodology used to determine the number and type of questions used in this survey. In this study two distinguished sets of questionnaires were used. To assess the students' study strategies and their learning methods, a more well known set of questionnaires called SPQ is used. As their study behaviours may stem from the perception of their future needs, another set of questions designed to assess their experiences in the course in School of EEE and their perceived career requirements was used to supplement the SPQ set. Chapter 4 describes the results and methods used to analyse and correlate the data. The last chapter provides some conclusions and recommendations to remedy the weaknesses of the present education approaches and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of students' learning processes.
The result of SPQ has confirmed that the students used more surface learning approaches and examination dependent as they progressed from third to fourth year. The more experienced students seemed to use more deep and achieving approaches in their study. The learning questionnaire also reflected that most of the final year students liked to participate in active group learning and answering questions in tutorial classes. Although a high percentage of final year students indicated their preference in receiving model answers, they also realised that model-answer approach may not be applicable in their future career. The author feels that the types of examination questions used and making lecturers' expectations known to the students may help students to reduce this paradox.
For most EEE graduates, this degree is probably the last stage of 'regular' education, he or she, is going to receive before they enter their working careers. Hence, the ultimate objective of an university education must be to provide them with the ability to pursue an interesting, rewarding and contributing life-long career. It is well known that the immediate aims of an university education are acquiring useful knowledge and skills to deal with and solve daily and present problems. However, in a fast developing engineering field like electronics, the knowledge acquired and skills learned can be obsolete in a short span of five years. In order to progress and survive in this competitive area, the candidate must possess deep motives and be able to initiate the learning process by himself or herself. The objectives of this project are to understand the motivation, study behaviours and the strategies used by these third and final year students and their expectations and understandings of their future careers. Other than having a better understanding of their study methods, motives and their expectations and aspirations for the future, this project also tries to investigate. if there exist any connections between these two areas to indicate the usefulness and successfulness of an university education. This report consists of five chapters. The first chapter begins with a brief description of the objectives of the study, followed by a discussion of the present education system in Singapore and the possible effects on the study behaviours of students. The third part of chapter one gives a general outline on the course structure in School of EEE in NTU and their assessment methods. This provides a general background on the educational system those students had passed through. The second chapter provides a brief literature review on the relevant topics concerning the motives, study strategies, learning styles and some studies conducted on Asian students. The third chapter discusses the methodology used to determine the number and type of questions used in this survey. In this study two distinguished sets of questionnaires were used. To assess the students' study strategies and their learning methods, a more well known set of questionnaires called SPQ is used. As their study behaviours may stem from the perception of their future needs, another set of questions designed to assess their experiences in the course in School of EEE and their perceived career requirements was used to supplement the SPQ set. Chapter 4 describes the results and methods used to analyse and correlate the data. The last chapter provides some conclusions and recommendations to remedy the weaknesses of the present education approaches and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of students' learning processes.
The result of SPQ has confirmed that the students used more surface learning approaches and examination dependent as they progressed from third to fourth year. The more experienced students seemed to use more deep and achieving approaches in their study. The learning questionnaire also reflected that most of the final year students liked to participate in active group learning and answering questions in tutorial classes. Although a high percentage of final year students indicated their preference in receiving model answers, they also realised that model-answer approach may not be applicable in their future career. The author feels that the types of examination questions used and making lecturers' expectations known to the students may help students to reduce this paradox.
Date Issued
1995
Call Number
T65.3 Chi
Date Submitted
1995