Sulaiman Yamin

The Impact of Instructional Methods on Critical Thinking: A Comparison of Problem-Based Learning and Conventional Approach in Engineering Education

Recent research reveals a gap in determining the effect of problem-based learning (PBL) on students’ critical thinking ability. Existing evidences from previous research have been equivocal to be deemed conclusive, especially in across multiple educational disciplines. This paper investigates the effect of PBL on students’ critical thinking ability, as compared to conventional approach. The study employed an experimental pretest and posttest with control group design. The participants were 53 undergraduate students in electrical engineering course, who attended Electrical Technology Module (ET101) in their first semester. Participants completed the pretest and posttests of the translated version of the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Specimen set. The results suggested that students’ critical thinking ability in the PBL group had not been significantly different from their counterparts in the conventional approach group. This paper further discusses the implication of problem-based learning in engineering education.

Problem Based Learning: A review of the monitoring and assessment model

This paper addresses an exemplary practice of the monitoring and assessment strategy in Problem Based Learning (PBL) environment. An initiative has been taken to provide some guidelines for curriculum designer, in order to design an engineering education curriculum, which is using PBL as a main pedagogical method. Since the monitoring and assessment strategy is one of the critical components that determine the success of PBL implementation, a review has been conducted which focuses on this aspect, in order to identify the specific key factors that contribute to a success of the PBL monitoring and assessment system. Then, these key factors are used to develop a novel PBL monitoring and assessment model for engineering education, specifically for technical skills programmes. Within this, several exemplary best practices have been identified, an approach such as the uses of rubric rating scale with emphasis on self-assessment process, and the strategy to assess two different areas of assessing personal skills and technical skills, appear as a key condition in creating competence graduates.

Nurturing personal skills development: Model of monitoring and assessment of student centred learning

centered learning has long time been introduced in the local polytechnics to enhance students learning in technical skills. Learning is believed to be much more effective when student undergoing group projects including lab works, computer assisted learning, group discussion, practical works and etc. But somehow there is some space for current practice to have some improvement in terms of its implementation strategy. We found that most of the assessments took place only at the end of the project completion. The criteria much focus on content knowledge rather than to view the evaluation process from wider perspective. This wider perspective importantly refers on nurturing student personal skills development. As a result, the students ability to apply knowledge in the workplace was claimed poor by most of the employers. Therefore, this study aims to look into the possible ways of adaptation of the existing system by developing the best practice guideline model of monitoring and assessment specifically in technical skills program in electrical engineering course. The final product is a rubric that will nurture student performance in personal skills during the learning process.