Subarna Sivapalan

Institutional Practices Versus Student Needs and Its Implications for the Development of a Holistic Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) Framework

Sustainable development (SD) competences feature prominently in the 2012 Malaysian Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) manual. The manual outlines 12 outcomes that undergraduate engineering students of Malaysian universities are expected to develop upon completion of their studies. These 12 outcomes, specifically those in relation to SD competences, are open for interpretation, in accordance to the vision, mission and educational philosophies of the respective universities and undergraduate engineering programmes. This paper highlights a Malaysian private engineering university’s endeavours to include SD competences within its undergraduate engineering programmes. The paper first focuses on the extent to which SD is featured within the institution’s programme educational outcomes and common modules. This was explored through qualitative means, namely manifest and latent content analysis. This is followed by a survey, to explore the present pedagogical practices within the undergraduate engineering programme to ascertain the extent to which it conforms to philosophies of education for sustainable development. Also highlighted are student stakeholders’ views on approaches best suited to teach sustainable development within the undergraduate engineering programme. The paper then discusses findings of a thematic analysis of open-ended survey responses on students’ needs that should be considered to help develop the desired sustainability learning experience in the university. A total of 12 categories were identified as a result of this thematic analysis, of which eight of these categories encompassed the common engineering modules i.e. (i) Practical versus Theoretical, (ii) Real sustainable development issues and situations, (iii) Sustainable development learning activities and assessment, (iv) The need for heightened exposure and awareness to sustainable development post-graduation, (v) Teaching and learning of sustainable development via knowledge of current technological trends, (vi) Sustainable development awareness through exposure within the engineering industry, (vii) Sustainable development content within current learning modules and (viii) Approach to teaching sustainable development. The remaining four categories identified were for the common non-engineering modules, namely (i) Communication and sustainable development, (ii) Approach to teaching sustainable development for non-engineering modules, (iii) Bringing real life sustainable development issues and situations into non-engineering modules and (iv) Relating engineering aspects with human and societal aspects. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the development of a holistic engineering education for sustainable development framework.

Engineering Education for Sustainable Development in Malaysia: Student Stakeholders Perspectives on the Integration of Holistic Sustainability Competences Within Undergraduate Engineering Programmes

The Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) stresses the importance for Malaysian engineering graduates to be sustainability literate. This is apparent in the 2012 Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC 2012) manual which outlines 12 graduate outcomes that Malaysian public and private universities are encouraged to integrate as undergraduate engineering programme outcomes, with some of the outcomes related to sustainable development. Although Malaysian universities are required to develop programme outcomes using outcome based approaches to learning, integration methods are not particularly outlined, perhaps to allow for academic creativity. To address the manner in which sustainable development outcomes could be integrated within the undergraduate engineering programme, a list of 30 hypothetical engineering education for sustainable development (EESD) competences was developed to address a holistic integration of sustainability outcomes within the engineering curriculum. Using a Malaysian private engineering university as a case study, this chapter focuses on the views of the institution’s final year undergraduate engineering student stakeholders on the inclusion of these 30 competences. Stakeholders’ perspectives were sought through a 5 point Likert scale survey on the: (a) competences they deemed as important to enable them to become sustainability competent engineers when they graduate (b) competences they deemed as necessary to be included as learning outcomes of engineering modules and non-engineering modules, namely language and communication, business and management modules, and (c) competences they deemed as necessary to be included as learning outcomes of university level programmes. Survey results indicate that the student stakeholders found the 30 competences for (a), (b) and (c) to be important, with mean scores ranging within the ‘somewhat important’ to ‘very important’ levels. The 30 competences were further categorised into relevant sustainability competence dimensions through principle component analysis, upon which the findings of the analysis were presented as a set of guidelines for the holistic incorporation of sustainability competences within the undergraduate engineering programme. The implications of the findings of the study are also discussed in this chapter, with the hope of giving engineering education stakeholders a foretaste of students’ views on integrating sustainability within the curriculum to advance EESD.

Engineering education for sustainable development: using online learning to support the new paradigms

Abstract This paper explores the experiences of three academic members of the University of Nottingham Open Online Course (NOOC) and Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) team, comprising an engineer (tutor), an engineering education specialist (facilitator) and a specialist in higher education pedagogy (convenor). The paper explores notions of what makes for effective teaching of sustainability within a multidisciplinary online context, and the extent to which this experience has impacted upon personal behaviours and attitudes to sustainability, from an Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) perspective. Team members’ experiences are further supported by findings from student and learner evaluations of the NOOC and MOOC courses. Key findings of the research include (a) Interdisciplinarity is a strength of the course (b) The course can lead to genuine change in the understanding of sustainability; (c) Teaching sustainability online is different; (d) Involvement in the course impacts upon teaching practices; (e) Cultural and disciplinary diversity within both the course team and the student cohort is a major contributor to the overall sustainable development learning experience in the NOOC/MOOC. It is hoped that the findings of the study will pave the way for engineering and non-engineering educators to explore the potential of integrating sustainability within the modules they teach, via online teaching and learning means.

DETECTION METHODS OF CARCINOGENS IN ESTUARIES: A REVIEW

About 70% of all cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Deaths from cancer worldwide are projected to continue to rise over 13.1 million by 2030. Research indicates that estuaries such as rivers and lakes contain various carcinogenic compounds. The carcinogens are transported from the release points to the intake points. To avoid this phenomenon from happening, fast and accurate detection of carcinogen concentrations in water is crucial. This paper presents a review of various detection methods of carcinogenic compounds in watercourses via biological, physical and chemical approaches. Descriptions of the biological procedures such as chromosomal aberration, Micronucleus assay, Ames test, Salmonella assay, SOS chromotest, Comet assay and organic extraction of XAD with blue rayon are discussed. Physical approaches have the integration of automated detections with science and engineering approaches, particularly sensors. Automated optical sensors, submersible ultraviolet fluorometer sensors, photoelectrochemical sensors with the detection of DNA damage and trihalomethanes sensors for the detection of carcinogenic compounds are also reviewed. Chemical approaches consist of the analysis of extraction, purification and identification of organic contaminants using high-technology equipments such as the atomic absorption spectrophotometer, high-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Carcinogens can be identified accurately using an appropriate method chosen from the available alternatives. The evaluations of detection methods presented in this review are based on advantages and disadvantages, accuracy, speed and time factor of methods and experimental procedures by previous scholars. This review contributes as guidance to readers on existing methods within different fields and their exclusive applications on different types of carcinogens in water.

Role of EEG delta and beta oscillations during problem solving tasks

Problem solving is one of the higher-order thinking skills that have been studied by many researchers using Electroencephalography (EEG) brain signals. This paper concentrates on specific neural oscillations that can be observed in EEG signals which are delta (1.0–4.0 Hz) and beta (12.0–25.0 Hz) during problem solving task. Our aim is to investigate the role of the delta and beta neural oscillations during problem solving task at cortical area as compared to resting state (i.e. eyes open) using EEG. Eight volunteered healthy right-handed male students were recruited in this study. EEG 128-channel Hydro-Cel Geodesic (EGI Inc.) system was used in this study for data collection, but only 19 channels were used for data analysis. EEG recordings were taken during problem solving task (i.e. Ravens Advanced Progressive Matric (RAPM)) and during resting state (eyes open). Results showed that delta was significantly higher in almost all brain region and beta was significantly higher at prefrontal region only. Since we aim to investigate the role of delta and beta oscillation during problem solving, further investigation needs to be done with greater number of subjects in order to have more significant result to support this study. Further investigation could also help in finding quantitative indicators for intelligent assessment using brain signals.

Innovations for teaching and learning: An exploration of the potential of EEG for individual and group learning activities

Group based learning or also known as collaborative learning has been in practice until now as one of the methods of learning as it can help learners gain better learning achievements especially in problem solving tasks. However, to date, many learning institutions from elementary level all the way to tertiary level are mostly practicing teaching approach based on lecture only which is a one-way teaching method that does not involve significant student participation. It is thus important to investigate objectively the learning achievement of group and individual learning in meeting their learning needs. Hence, this study explores the potential of EEG to investigate the learning achievements between group and individual learning in problem solving task as EEG is widely been used for investigation of brain behavior in diversity of cognitive tasks including problem solving. We will investigate brain activation in individual and group learning and the differences between them based on problem solving task using EEG.

Design of web intervention to influence youth behavior toward online gaming

PC or video games are an electronic game that has been made famous among teens way back in the 80s era. It has been a source of entertainment and stress relief as an after school or holidays activity. Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) were made possible with the growth of broadband Internet access in many developed countries, using the Internet to allow hundreds of thousands of players to play the same game together. However, if too much time is spent in playing online games and players show negative behavior sign or pathological, the player is categorized or known as an online game addict. Once addicted, it will affect the players psychological and physical well-being. The objective of this study is to propose the design of a web intervention to influence youth behavior towards online gaming using Cognitive Dissonance and Gagnes Learning Theory. Based on our previous research work, we are using the same theories and applying it in a different type of behavioral issue which in this case is online gaming. In UTP (Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS), students are able to play online games among themselves via the local area network. A total of 30 students who plays online games more than 10 hours per day were chosen, ranging from the 18 to 22 age range. Players will be categorized according to a baseline survey. Each category of users will go through the web intervention of different content. It is hoped that by combining the abovementioned theories, players are able to reduce their number of hours in playing online games.

Design and development process model of converting literature texts into graphical metaphor

Nowadays, with the expansion of learning styles using technological instruments, there is a need for methodologies to design a proper structure of learning materials or course content. Problems have been identified in previous work at analysis stage where students were found to have difficulty in learning Literature in English because of several factors, one of it being uninteresting learning materials. Therefore, the objective of developing this course content is to introduce the use of graphic metaphor for the teaching of the Literature in English subject. This will be used as a supplementary tool for teaching and learning purposes and will also try to at least reduce the learning problems faced by students by proper design of the course content. Several design principles and an instructional design model has been considered to be applied in the design and development process. In the design stage, few principles and guidelines will be adopted namely multimedia design principles. With the proper design and the combination of instructional design model, multimedia design principles and the use of graphic metaphor student interest in the subject is expected to increase. This paper will elaborate more on the process that is currently being done especially in the design stage as well as the stage of development. Development process model of converting literature texts into graphical has been introduced for this purpose.