Evaluation of mathematical competencies among electrical engineering students

Abstract

In universities, engineering students are often seen as a group of students with high level of intelligence. The engineering programme seeks applications from students with a strong command in Mathematics and Science. Therefore, it is believed that Mathematical Competencies (MC) are the element that plays a vital role in engineering education since there are plenty of applications of mathematical knowledge in engineering courses. This paper discusses mathematical competencies further, with emphasis on those demonstrated by the engineering students. MC consist of eight components: Thinking mathematically, posing and solving a mathematical problem, modelling mathematically, reasoning mathematically, representing mathematically, handling mathematical symbols and formalisms, communicating in, with, and about mathematics and using aids and tools. Unfortunately, many engineering students did not meet the required level as they did not perform well in the engineering course, whereby in this study, the focus was on the Electromagnetic Field Theory (EMT) course. EMT was chosen because the course contains high mathematical component. A qualitative method of ethnographic research design was selected as a mean to collect data, which was then analysed using thematic analysis. A set of EMT questions was developed for 17 participants from an electrical engineering programme. From the written work, it can be said that the participants demonstrated their MC based on their answers. It can be concluded that most of the participants with higher marks were able to demonstrate almost all of the MC components.