Nicolaas Luwes

Reflecting on the balance between theory and practical grades of engineering students — A case study

Universities of Technology must enable students to acquire the necessary knowledge (theory), workplace skills (practice), and graduate attributes (theory and practice) needed to meet the needs of industry, business and community. Reflective practice may involve the thoughtful consideration of an academics own experiences in enhancing the fusion of theory and practice in an engineering curriculum. This fusion is currently an important criterion for Universities of Technology who may face increased pressure to improve their throughput rates. This paper aims to answer the following research question: “What balance currently exists between the practical and theoretical success of undergraduate students in a number of different engineering disciplines at a University of Technology”? Reflecting on the current balance that exists and its implications may assist academics in changing their pedagogy to include more effective ways of fusing theory and practice. A post-facto study is employed along with descriptive statistics involving quantitative analysis of the collected data. Results do indicate that undergraduate engineering students are more adept at completing the practical assessments scheduled in a laboratory, suggesting that more time on practice should be scheduled along with practical experiments that promote critical thinking and problem solving skills.

The relationship between demographics and the academic achievement of engineering students

The changing structure of student populations or cohorts over decades’ produces changing academic achievements or results. This may be due to a number of factors, including the school education system, the political system and the sociocultural system. The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between student demographics and the academic achievement of undergraduate engineering students over a 15-year period. A longitudinal descriptive study is used to determine the relationships between specific variables that existed between 1998 and 2013. These variables include gender, age and home languages of students that are contrasted to their final grade in a compulsory Design Projects module. Students need to obtain more than 50% to successfully complete this module, with the results indicating greater success for students with an Afrikaans or IsiZulu mother tongue than compared to students with a Sesotho, Setswana or Xhosa mother tongue. Younger students, less than 21 years of age, have a higher pass rate than older students who are more than 24 years of age. Finally, males outnumber females by more than 3:1. However, their final overall pass rates differ by only 3%, suggesting that both genders performed equally well in the Design Projects module. A key recommendation is to provide additional academic support to older students who may be struggling to synthesize knowledge and skills from a wide number of modules

Scholarship of teaching and learning: ‘what the hell’ are we getting ourselves into?

ABSTRACT Academics must be encouraged to reflect on their teaching, to apply new pedagogies to support student learning and to report on the results of these actions, which really forms part of programmes relating to Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). However, there seems to be resistance among some academics to get involved in these programmes due to fear of change or discrimination. The purpose of this article is to highlight the perceptions of four academics from different engineering fields towards such a programme from a University of Technology in South Africa. A qualitative study is employed where a focus group interview was used to gather data which are correlated to the SoTL unicycle detailed in the article. A benefit of joining an SoTL programme includes ‘developing a teaching action plan’ while a key challenge relates to time concerns. An implication may be to stimulate awareness among non-participating academics about what an SoTL programme really engenders.

Academic and Student Perceptions on the Intergation of HIV and AIDS education in an Electrical Engineering Curriculum at a South African University of Technology

South Africa has the largest number of people living with HIV and AIDS in the world. A concerted effort is needed to address this epidemic, lest a socio-economic crisis may cripple the country. Education may be the most powerful weapon in this regard, with universities playing a critical role in addressing this concern. In 2015, a funding program was initiated by Universities South Africa to facilitate this integration. Subsequently, the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at a South African University of Technology set out to re-design their curricula to include vital aspects relating to HIV and AIDS. A responsive driven curriculum design was adopted whereby the perceptions and expectations of facilitators and students in this department towards HIV and AIDS education were sought. An online open-ended questionnaire was used to gather both qualitative and quantitative results. This paper presents the initial findings of this study. A key recommendation of this study is to develop a digital online module addressing advanced HIV and AIDS education with special focu on its application in the workplace.