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An introspective study on students’ motivation, understanding and performance in engineering statics

Haron, Habibah @ Norehan and Shaharoun, Awaluddin Mohamed and Puteh, Marlia (2010) An introspective study on students’ motivation, understanding and performance in engineering statics. In: American Society for Engineering Education Global Colloquium, 18-21 October 2010, Singapore.

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Abstract

Statics is a fundamental engineering course, which many students find difficult [1-3] to understand. This has considerably affected the students’ performance in Statics and other follow-on courses, and consequently, disheartened them from pursuing engineering as a career [4, 5]. However, findings from previous researches showed that good academic performance on assessment alone does not necessarily reflect the engineering students’ deep understanding of the fundamental concepts [6, 7]. Steif [8]suggested that apart from the universal issues such as the hard to learn concepts, the local culture and students’ work habits contribute to this continual problem . In an earlier survey conducted by the authors, most students attributed their performance in Statics to their own efforts in learning. Therefore, this paper investigates the influence of students’ motivational factors in learning for understanding and learning for achieving good performance through statistical data analysis and semi-structured interviews. The findings of this research provide a useful insight into students’ motivation in the learning of this fundamental engineering course. This will be useful in designing a curriculum that could enhance engineering students understanding and performance and retain them in the programme.

Item Type:Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:students’ performance, local culture
Subjects:L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Divisions:Education
ID Code:11327
Deposited By: Narimah Nawil
Deposited On:13 Dec 2010 02:42
Last Modified:17 Mar 2020 08:24

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