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This paper reports on research that extends knowledge about higher education students' perceptions of online engagement. In particular, the study aimed to identify what students thought engagement was and how they experienced it. Understanding students' views about online engagement will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the topic and should assist instructional designers to support academic staff to develop online courses that are more likely to engage their students. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study found that students felt most engaged with learning when doing practical, hands-on activities. Additional findings from the qualitative and quantitative data are highlighted, with some differences between the students' perceptions in the different types of data, particularly concerning social engagement. This suggests that further research is warranted. The paper offers several practical implications for student learning.

In this paper, we present a novel approach for semiautomatic question generation to support academic writing. Our system first extracts key phrases from students' literature review papers. Each key phrase is matched with a Wikipedia article and classified into one of five abstract concept categories: Research Field, Technology, System, Term, and Other. Using the content of the matched Wikipedia article, the system then constructs a conceptual graph structure representation for each key phrase and the questions are then generated based the structure. To evaluate the quality of the computer generated questions, we conducted a version of the Bystander Turing test, which involved 20 research students who had written literature reviews for an IT methods course. The pedagogical values of generated questions were evaluated using a semiautomated process. The results indicate that the students had difficulty distinguishing between computer-generated and supervisor-generated questions. Computer-generated questions were also rated as being as pedagogically useful as supervisor-generated questions, and more useful than generic questions. The findings also suggest that the computer-generated questions were more useful for the first-year students than for second or third-year students. (Contains 12 tables and 4 figures.)

A study on the effectiveness of engineering education in the development of industry-ready graduate engineers was conducted among academics and industry experts of engineering disciplines who have relevant experience in work-integrated learning in Australia. The hypothesis was that embedding enhanced work-integrated learning into all study semesters has the increased possibility of developing industry-ready graduate engineers. This paper outlines the research outcomes and an enhanced work-integrated learning framework that might be helpful for improving the industry-readiness of graduating engineers. Based on the research results, the researchers propose the allocation of an appropriate level of work-integrated learning for each indicator of attainment component from the elements of Engineers Australia's Stage I Competencies. The aim of this paper is to provide detailed recommendations for implementing an enhanced work-integrated model in Bachelor of Engineering programs in Australia. The authors also present the concept of curriculum development based on industry-integrated learning outcomes, as well as the campus and industry engagement model for enhanced work-integrated learning for the subjects of study in the Bachelor of Engineering program. This framework can be used globally as a reference for developing similar work-integrated learning models.

Educators constantly need to make adjustments to their pedagogy and learning activities to reflect the fast changes in society, the economy and industry. This has been clearly demonstrated throughout the world in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic required fully remote delivery of tertiary education. The aim of this study was comparing the experiences and perceptions of tertiary students in a fully online and a blended delivery mode, particularly in response to their laboratory skills and development of graduate attributes. Pedagogical aspects were kept consistent across delivery modes to minimise the differences in learning activities across cohorts. A comparison was made between the 2020 fully online cohort and the 2021 blended delivery cohort. The students were asked about their perceptions of how well they thought the course developed their graduate attributes; how authentic they thought the course was; and how easy the content was to navigate and understand. A mixed methods approach was used, where both quantitative and qualitative data was gathered. The blended delivery mode students appeared to benefit from having a specific reflective task, which allowed them to see their learning in a broader context. The paper discusses the blending and online learning from the students' perspectives of developing graduate attributes and experiential learning. Specifically, where hands on skills are required, students need further guidance in "learning how to learn" or metacognition. A key challenge for future blended learning is getting the balance right between achieving efficiency in online learning and lack of social and dynamic interactions aspect of the online community.

Engineering mechanics is a core course for mechanical engineering university students. In recent years, the lecturers of a second-year undergraduate engineering mechanics course faced many new challenges arising from ever-increasing class sizes, as well as evolving learning styles and expectations of new generation students due to advances in technology. This paper describes the evolution of a mechanics course in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of New South Wales using blended learning. Significant changes were implemented to: (1) reduce the administrative burden associated with the large number of students; (2) maintain student interest and engagement throughout the semester; and (3) successfully deliver the learning outcomes. Student participation was observed to increase with integration of additional information and communication technology, as well as implementation of online assessments into the course structure. Surprisingly, implementation of the blended learning did not improve student academic performance in the summative assessments. This paper reflects what we have learned in the development of this blended learning mechanics course.

Industry engagement, commonly implemented as a 12 week industry placement during a vacation towards the end of the degree, has traditionally been a provider-mandated component of externally accredited professional engineering degrees in Australia. Such placements are intended to bridge knowledge and capability gaps between academic study and engineering employment and contextualise the final phase of academic study. Changes in the composition of Australia's engineering industries have made it progressively harder to source such placements. In-curriculum exposure to engineering practice has also been expected, but has been delivered with considerable variability. In 2014 the authors completed a national project, led by the Australian Council of Engineering Deans (ACED), with peak industry bodies and several partner universities, funded from the Commonwealth Department of Industry Workplace Innovation Program, to explore how improving industry engagement could contribute further to engineering graduates' learning outcomes and employability. The data collected from the engineering students and employers, reported in this paper, can now be regarded as baseline data on industry engagement, against which subsequent developments can be referenced. For the first time, students' ratings of the value of different methods for industry engagement are shown to be related to their 'authenticity'. Several industry-inspired in-curriculum interventions were also trialled at partner universities. Guidelines for good practice were developed from melding the experiential findings with theoretical perspectives. In the years since completing the project, the accreditation body, Engineers Australia, has updated and intensified its focus on engagement with practice (including changing its language from 'exposure' to 'engagement'), and many engineering faculties have significantly enhanced their models and requirements for work integrated learning and industry engagement. This paper outlines these changes and examples of new implementations, including virtual and electronically-mediated methods that also reflect ongoing changes in engineering industry practice.

There is ongoing interest in developing rigorous and accurate assessment methods in higher education, particularly in the use of assessment rubrics and in providing more useful feedback to students rather than a simple grade. However, there has been little used of reliable assessment rubrics that provide feedback to individual students on their teamwork participation and skills, and which assist academic staff in assessing teamwork among students. This paper reports on the second phase of a study that aimed to evaluate a rubric to assess skills and processes in teamwork, and whether a rubric facilitated a better learning experience than a simple marking scheme. The second phase focused on the implementation of a revised assessment rubric designed to assist students and staff in understanding what was expected in the assessment process, and in particular the creation of efficient tools and metrics to measure both teamwork and individual performance during collaborative team design projects. Findings from two surveys of students provided the dataset for this second phase of the study. The findings demonstrate that assessment rubrics provide an important adjunct in improving students' teamwork performance and their understanding of their learning activities. This study will also contribute to ongoing discussions on higher education assessment methods.

An ever-increasing array of design visualisation tools are available to designers. As such, design education is constantly challenged to keep up with these trends so that students are best equipped for entering industrial practice. This paper reports a study into the use of digital sketching, a relatively new digital visualisation tool. The study aims to identify thematic differences in how students and practitioners perceive digital sketching. These are given in terms of the tool's characteristics, and how these characteristics guide its application in early stages of the design process. Data on perceptions is captured using design diaries and semistructured interviews. Results show key differences in the way that practitioners perceive the intent of visualisation. Practitioners focus on iterating towards a solution during the design process. Students are much more focused on the task of creating visualisations. This reveals an underlying contradiction in the way tools are perceived between creating visualisations to gain expertise or skill, versus creating them to advance the design process. The insights help improve our understanding of how the different characteristics of digital sketching inform its use. We reflect on how we educate students with respect to selecting and using digital sketching. We conclude with implications for education of digital sketching, as well as other emerging digital visualisation tools.

The Makerspace phenomenon has morphed into three readily identifiable types characterised by accessibility: dedicated, distributed, and mobile. The research presented in this paper describes a type of Makerspace that is defined by its purpose: to improve the confidence and ability of primary education students in STEM education. This approach is innovative and timely given the renewed interest and investment of the federal and state governments into STEM education. A new model of professional learning that is currently being validated in an extended, funded project framed this research that involved 9 female teacher education students and 71 schoolgirls in Years 5 and 6. Whilst a large set of qualitative data was collected, this paper reports on the progress and reflections of the teacher education students, and shares insights into their personal learning and development as teachers.

The use of analytic methods for extracting learning strategies from trace data has attracted considerable attention in the literature. However, there is a paucity of research examining any association between learning strategies extracted from trace data and responses to well-established self-report instruments and performance scores. This paper focuses on the link between the learning strategies identified in the trace data and student reported approaches to learning. The paper reports on the findings of a study conducted in the scope of an undergraduate engineering course (N = 144) that followed a flipped classroom design. The study found that learning strategies extracted from trace data can be interpreted in terms of deep and surface approaches to learning. The detected significant links with self-report measures are with small effect sizes for both the overall deep approach to learning scale and the deep strategy scale. However, there was no observed significance linking the surface approach to learning and surface strategy nor were there significant associations with motivation scales of approaches to learning. The significant effects on academic performance were found, and consistent with the literature that used self-report instruments showing that students who followed a deep approach to learning had a significantly higher performance.

Teaching second year undergraduate digital electronics is a serious business, designed to impart individual technical mastery. In this paper we attempt to embed several key digital logic concepts within an escape room game. We report results of iteratively piloting our game with academic engineering staff and then used them with students showing promise for using escape rooms to support undergraduate engineering education.

The EPICS Program was created in 1995 with the dual purposes of improving engineering education and addressing compelling needs within our communities. The model broke with many traditional academic traditions, involving students in multidisciplinary teams of students from first-year to fourth years for multiple semesters or even years on projects with local and global community partners. EPICS has been recognized as a model within engineering education and community engagement. The EPICS model has been adapted by several other institutions at the undergraduate and pre-university settings. There are currently 38 active higher education institutions with each adapting the model to their own institutional culture. This paper highlights the EPICS model and how four institutions that are recognized global leaders in engineering education have collaborated and adapted the model to their own institution's goals and culture.

The Charles Sturt University (CSU) Engineering programme is a new course (degree programmme) established in 2016 by a university that had not previously taught engineering. This start from scratch occasion was taken as an opportunity to build an all-new programme structure and philosophy. Students at CSU Engineering complete a sequence of three semester-long Project-Based Learning (PBL) style challenges across their time face-to-face at the university; after this point, they commence four yearlong paid industry-based work placements and continue studies in an online mode during evenings, weekends, and scheduled study days. The underlying technical curriculum for the engineering programme at Charles Sturt University is delivered mostly on-line via the RealizeIT platform and is based on a philosophy of just-in-time, self-directed learning. Students have freedom in deciding when, how and, to a large extent, which elements of the curriculum they engage within the online environment. This freedom, along with the PBL-style challenges, is enabled by the structure of the technical curriculum which is broken down into fine-grained learning activities called 'topics'. In this paper, we summarise our experiences during the first four years, and the insights gained into student behaviours when offered an opportunity to engage in self-directed learning.

Contribution: This paper introduces the real-world limitations and non-technical aspects of power electronics (PEs) projects to students through innovative tutorial activities. Background: Many electrical engineering curricula offer a PE courses (PECs) for third- or fourth-year undergraduate students. Prior research on PEs education mainly focused on improving students' experimental skills through developing practical experiments, laboratory activities, and problem/project-based learning. An instructional approach that instead employs real-world knowledge and skills is worth evaluating. Intended Outcomes: Students should be able to consider real-world technical and non-technical limitations when applying theory to design PE circuits and converters, and be able to select and carry out appropriate tests to troubleshoot circuits. Application Design: Prior research on engineering education emphasized the importance of introducing real-world limitations to the students as part of their curriculum. This paper suggests that the tutorial activities presented in a PEC can help students acquire skills in designing and troubleshooting a circuit or system according to desired technical aspects, real-world limitations, and available data. Findings: Evidence of the validity of this approach in a PEC at two Australian universities, over four academic years, is provided. Students receiving the new tutorial activities had percentage scores some 10-15 points higher than those who had traditional tutorials. Another evaluation reveals the students' vibrant participation in the activities during the new tutorial sessions.

This paper elaborates on a number of key criticisms of Mezirow's transformative learning theory as well as providing arguments that validate it. Our paper exemplifies how Mezirow's theory can help adult educators and prospective school teachers understand that social structures and belief systems can influence student learning, that learners make meaning of their experiences in various ways which influence the sort of value systems they develop and that disorienting dilemmas often challenge the validity of one's values and the assumptions that underpin them. It exemplifies how Mezirow's theory can be put into practice in Adult and Higher Education via three case studies undertaken by the authors in different places, at different times and with different sets of learners. These include mature aged women returning to study, PhDs at a Swedish Engineering University, and domestic and international students studying at an Australian regional university. The case studies make use of a values survey, interviews and subsequent focus groups. Data from the survey and interviews are analysed and used to argue that transformative learning (Mezirow, 1991) can be practiced, to good effect, in university staff development and teacher education courses.

This paper reports on a three-year study conducted in Western Australia, which commenced in January 2008, and was completed by December 2010. It concerns the potential to use digital technologies to represent the output from assessment tasks in two senior secondary courses: Engineering Studies and Physical Education Studies. The general aim of this study was to explore the potential of various digitally based forms for external assessment for senior secondary courses in terms of manageability, cost, validity and reliability. The problem being addressed in this research is the need to provide students with assessment opportunities that are authentic, where many outcomes do not lend themselves to being assessed using pen and paper over a three-hour period, and that are also able to be reliably and manageably assessed by external examiners. These two courses both have a significant performance-based component, and a certain level of dissonance results when students have performance expectations, and teachers teach to the theory examination in an attempt to ensure high pass rates. In Engineering Studies, a computer-managed examination was designed that consisted of a design task that was broken down into a number of timed activities. Students were paced through each activity, recording their input in the form of a portfolio. Input consisted of text, graphics through a camera and voice, and the exam outputs were uploaded to an online repository for marking by external assessors. In Physical Education Studies, a digitally based examination was designed that incorporated four inter-related components. Two of these required computer-based responses and two were video-recorded practical performance components. Digital output from all parts of the task was collated into evidence portfolios and uploaded to an online repository for marking by external assessors. This paper focuses specifically on issues of authenticity in relation to the examination tasks designed for each course. It discusses longstanding concerns relating to authenticity associated with courses with a strong performance dimension in which there tends to be a dissonance between the teaching and learning of theory and practice. Ways in which digital technologies were utilised to address these issues are critically examined in this research.

The range of rationales that underpin conceptions of flexible education, and the re-making over time of the official meaning of flexibility in national education policy, have led to the point where flexibility might be found, or be required, in nearly every aspect of Australian higher education. This paper seeks to identify those rationales and the development of public policy rhetoric that have framed the development of the meaning of flexible education over time in an Australian context. By considering the intersection of theoretical and policy perspectives on flexible education with the realities of teaching and learning practice in the discipline context of engineering, this paper proposes the essential importance of individual context and agency in the making of real meaning from, and creating practical boundaries around, the otherwise tenuous definitions of flexibility often offered by institutional policy.

Engineering education is undergoing a restructuring driven by the needs of an increasingly multidisciplinary engineering profession. At the same time, power systems are transitioning toward future smart grids that will require power engineers with skills outside of the core power engineering domain. Since including new topics in the existing curriculum while maintaining the existing requirements is difficult, this paper proposes a project-based cooperative learning approach to promote soft skills in an engineering course. This paper then shows how to construct a realistic open-ended multidisciplinary problem whose solution requires a wide range of skills, which is not a trivial task. The design and technoeconomic viability assessment of a small-scale photovoltaic battery system is used as a case study. The effectiveness of the approach and students' satisfaction were assessed over two years. Survey results after the first year revealed that the students did not feel sufficiently prepared for multidisciplinary work. After appropriate adjustments in the second year, the survey results improved noticeably. Statistical analysis reveals that the project teaches skills that are complementary to the core domain skills, which confirms the validity of the approach.

Global software engineering education (GSEE) is aimed at providing software engineering (SE) students with knowledge, skills, and understanding of working in globally distributed arrangements so they can be prepared for the global SE (GSE) paradigm. It is important to understand the challenges involved in GSEE for improving the quality and experience of educators and students. This paper reports the findings of an empirical study on the socio-cultural aspects of GSEE. A case study was conducted involving 14 participants from ten different universities in eight countries. The data was analyzed using grounded theory's open coding procedure. The key contributions of this paper are the identification and description of seven dimensions of socio-cultural distance that caused several significant challenges in the courses: 1) language differences; 2) concept of time; 3) attitude toward grades; 4) assumptions about national culture; 5) differences in autonomy; 6) influence of the course lecturer; and 7) work habits. Recommendations from this paper that are expected to benefit GSEE educators and students include: cross-cultural orientation of students prior to the course; use of various strategies to support better comprehension of different English accents (e.g., speaking slowly, replaying recorded video messages, and text chatting); and educators familiarizing themselves and their students with the relevant GSE and GSEE literature.

This paper reports on evaluation of a scheme to improve University teaching through action research over a five-year period in the science, engineering, and technology division of a large Australian dual sector University. Between 2002 to 2006 this scheme directly committed approximately A$210,000 in grants and involved over 130 teaching and other staff in sponsoring projects of up to eight months' duration, with a total of 34 projects completed. Evaluation was informed by the desire of the academic developers concerned with the scheme to engage more widely with staff in predominantly empirical disciplinary cultures, to be more accountable within a University business management paradigm, and to contribute to the scholarship of academic development. The paper provides evidence--in terms of quality, effectiveness, practicality, participation, and satisfaction--to show how this scheme enhanced the scholarship of teaching and learning in the University. The paper outlines issues encountered and further work to be done in undertaking evaluation of such a scheme. (Contains 3 tables.)

Problem solving and researching are connected activities in the engineering profession and across education. The empirical research presented in this paper considered the effectiveness for teaching and learning of a model that was based on this connection and derived from the parameters of the Research Skill Development framework. The model, devised by students for students, is called the Optimising Problem Solving (OPS) pentagon, and was piloted in a large first-year engineering course in 2014-2015 and in another university in the first half of 2016. This article presents data from formal research conducted on the 2016 offering of the course gathered from pre (n=221) and post (n=169) surveys, and semi-structured interviews of students (n=5) and student/tutors (n=5) sixteen months after course completion. Statistically significant (p < 0.01) changes from pre to post in items with medium to large effect sizes provided student perspectives on which problem-solving skills improved, and the interview data provided rich detail on the nature of changes and how these changes were effected. For the 2016 cohort studied, our evidence suggests that use of the OPS pentagon was associated with improved student problem-solving skills, and tutors' capacity to teach problem solving.

Project-based learning is a widely used pedagogical strategy in engineering education shown to be effective in fostering problem-solving, design, and teamwork skills. There are distinct benefits to be gained from giving students autonomy in determining the nature and scope of the projects that they wish to undertake, but a lack of expert guidance and of a clear direction at the outset can result in confusion, frustration, and unfulfilled goals. Moreover, engineering schools face the imperative of providing students with opportunities to engage with industry during their courses, which can be difficult to accomplish due to logistical and time constraints. This paper reports on a case study in which undergraduate students of electrical, computer, mechatronics, and telecommunications engineering interacted with representatives from industry to obtain feedback at the inception phase of their design projects. Students pitched their ideas to the industry guests at a virtual "trade fair" held within a hybrid video conferencing and three-dimensional (3-D) virtual world environment, in preparation for the assessable pitches that they had to deliver on campus to a faculty audience. Survey and assessment results attest to the participants' satisfaction as well as to the effectiveness of the approach in improving student self-efficacy and performance. The paper concludes with recommendations for engineering educators looking to implement similar initiatives and a brief outline of the authors' plans for the future.

A barrier to using head mounted display (HMD) virtual reality (VR) in education is access to hardware for large classes. This paper compares students' learning when engaging with an HMD VR simulation as the operator and as the observer, to evaluate whether benefits of HMD VR can be achieved without requiring all students to operate the equipment. Postgraduate engineering students (N = 117) completed a safety hazard identification exercise in a workshop. The performance of students who operated and observed was compared. Results showed that students performed similarly in the exercise that followed the simulation whether they operated HMD VR (n = 33) or observed (n = 84). The finding suggests that educators may be able to use HMD VR simulations in classes with a large enrolment, by reducing the need for investment and management of a large number of sets of HMD VR equipment. Implications for practice or policy: (1) Engineering educators can use HMD VR simulations to teach students about safety in design; (2) Engineering students are able to identify safety hazards in a HMD VR simulation effectively whether they are operating the equipment or observing another student in their group operating the VR equipment; (3) One HMD VR set per student group is sufficient; and (4) HMD VR simulations can be used inclusively, even when some students are unable or unwilling to wear the headset.

This paper presents several methods for motivating students taking a power system protection (PSP) course. The paper reviews the laboratory activities developed for the PSP course at Curtin University, Australia; these methods are applicable and can be used for PSP course instruction at any institution. These activities were developed to improve the learning experience of the electrical engineering undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in this course. Initially, the PSP course at Curtin University consisted of lectures and tutorials accompanied by two sessions of software-based simulations and one session of laboratory demonstration. To motivate the students, several computer-based simulations and practical laboratory experiments were developed. PSCAD and ETAP power system analysis software tools are introduced and used to demonstrate the performance and coordination of different protection relays from steady-state and dynamic points of view. Also, a practical setup composed of a LabVolt power system simulator and industrial relays is used to carry out several practical experiments. The experiments help students observe the performance of protection systems for transformers and induction motors during faults and abnormal operating conditions. Finally, the concept of relay testing and commissioning is introduced by relay standalone experiments using a secondary injection relay test set. The results of these activities were evaluated according to the students' satisfaction, comments, total scores, and interest in PSP.

Research on engineering practice is scarce and sharing of qualitative research data can reduce the effort required for an aspiring researcher to obtain enough data from engineering workplaces to draw generalizable conclusions, both qualitative and quantitative. This paper describes how a large shareable qualitative data set on engineering practices was accumulated from 350 interviews and 12 field studies performed by the principal investigator and by students conducting PhD and capstone research projects. Ethical research practice required that sharing and reuse of qualitative data be considered from the start. The researchers' interests and methods were aligned to maintain sufficient consistency to support subsequent analysis and re-analysis of data. Analysis helped to answer questions of fundamental significance for engineering educators: what do engineers do, and why are the performances of engineering enterprises so different in South Asia compared with similar enterprises in Australia? Analysis also demonstrated the overwhelming significance of technical collaboration in engineering practice. Conceiving engineering practice as a series of technical collaboration performances requires a more elaborate understanding of social interactions than is currently the case in engineering schools. Another finding is that global engineering competency could be better described in terms of "working with people who collaborate differently". Research helped to demonstrate that formal treatment of technical collaboration in an engineering curriculum could help avoid student misconceptions about engineering practice that hinder their subsequent engineering performances.

Contribution: This paper demonstrated on a large scale that explicit articulation of creativity-related learning goals on engineering syllabi is quite limited, and primarily limited to the first year of study. Engineering educators may need to do more to ensure creativity is explicitly addressed as an expected learning outcome within engineering syllabi. Background: Prior studies have shown inclusion of creativity within engineering syllabi and course activities are generally limited. Students may perceive educators do not value creativity, and their studies have limited influence on their creative skills. Studies conflict on whether creativity skills increase over completing an engineering degree. Creativity has been demonstrated to be an important skill for engineering professionals, but one not necessarily appropriately addressed in engineering programs. Few studies have attempted to quantify coverage of creativity material on a nation-wide scale, as opposed to in a single or select few institutions. Research Questions: 1) To what extent do engineering educators explicitly articulate creativity and innovation-related learning goals and material on their course syllabi? and 2) To what extent do engineering educators explicitly articulate exposure to, or instruction in the use of, creativity heuristics within their course syllabi? Methodology: The online publicly accessible course outlines of 1109 compulsory courses from 42 degree programs accredited by two national engineering accreditation bodies were qualitatively analyzed in a two-stage approach using document analysis. Findings: Approximately 2% of compulsory electrical engineering course outlines explicitly articulate creativity-related material; only one course articulated engaging students in using creativity heuristics.

This paper describes in detail a successful training program developed for sessional (part-time or nonpermanent) laboratory demonstrators employed in the Electrical Engineering Department of an Australian university. Such demonstrators play an important role in teaching practical concepts and skills in engineering. The success of the program relies on a centralized approach coordinated by a carefully selected Laboratory Manager responsible for the recruitment, allocation, training, and development of sessional teachers, and for assessing student satisfaction with them. The paper examines the overall impact of the program on these teachers': 1) introducing laboratory material; 2) preparation; 3) communication; 4) interest in student learning; 5) ability to respond to questions; and 6) overall effectiveness. Sessional teacher satisfaction with the training program is also examined, and the data were used to inform the program's further development. The results show that the training program successfully improved the demonstrators' teaching skills and thus led to greater satisfaction and hence learning experience of both students and demonstrators.

This paper presents a new photovoltaic (PV) power systems laboratory module that was developed to experimentally reinforce students' understanding of design principles, operation, and control of photovoltaic power conversion systems. The laboratory module is project-based and is designed to support a renewable energy course. By using MATLAB real-time software tools in combination with digital signal processor (DSP) hardware tools, the module enables students to: 1) design and build dc-dc and dc-ac power converters; 2) design and implement control algorithms for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and voltage and current regulation; and 3) design and fabricate a printed circuit board for voltage and current sensing, isolation, and gate driving. In these hands-on experiments, by designing and building their hardware and software integrated systems themselves, students learn by doing and experience the engineering transformative process of building a product out of an idea. This paper is motivated by the dearth of literature on the application of project-based learning methodology to PV systems. The module description, the pedagogical and evaluation methodologies adopted, and reflections on the implementations are discussed.

A wide range of graduate attributes are listed, categorized and prioritized by different higher education institutions. However, one attribute that is less visible in the literature is creativity. In the current study, creativity has emerged as a desirable graduate attribute among students and employers. This paper presents an exploratory discussion framed around a pilot study that examines student and employer perceptions on how creativity in leadership can be developed through a work-integrated learning approach for innovation and enterprise students in a science and engineering program. Key outcomes are discussed suggesting that notions of creativity have evolved from first generation concepts of creativity as an artistic, complex trait of gifted individuals toward a higher level of development to second generation concepts of creativity as a purposeful, collaborative process. Creativity in leadership emerged as a desirable graduate attribute.

Background: Computer-aided learning management systems (LMSs) are widely used in higher education and are viewed as beneficial when transitioning from conventional face-to-face teaching to fully online courses. While LMSs have unique tools for transferring and assessing knowledge, their ability to engage and assess learners needs further investigation. This paper focuses on a study examining the LMS "Moodle" to ascertain the effectiveness of "Moodle quizzes" to improve, assess and distinguish knowledge in a civil engineering course at an Australian university. The course has a database comprising 62 formative and 61 summative quiz questions with embedded text, images, audio and video. This study investigates the use of these quiz questions with four course cohorts and 169 students. The quizzes assessed competencies of students during various stages of a study period through automated marking. The suitability of questions to assess and distinguish student knowledge levels was determined using a psychometric analysis based on facility index (FI) and the discrimination index (DI) statistics embedded within the Moodle quizzes. Results: This study highlights strategies used to set and review quiz questions for formative and summative assessments. Results indicated that students were engaged and satisfied in the formative assessment because they viewed the interactive videos between 2 and 6 times and 65% of students attempted all the formative questions. The FI indicated student pass rate for the summative questions and DI indicated the difficulty of these questions, while the combination of FI and DI results separated students with different knowledge levels. Using these Moodle statistics provided information to make effective decisions on how to improve the summative quizzes. Conclusion: The multimodal quizzes were effective in teaching and assessing a theoretical engineering course and provided efficient methods to replace conventional assessments. The FI and DI indexes are useful statistical tools in redesigning appropriate sets of questions. Time-poor academics will benefit from using these easily attainable Moodle statistics to inform decisions while revising the quizzes and making assessments more autonomous.

Sustainability has emerged as a primary context for engineering education in the 21st Century, particularly the sub-discipline of chemical engineering. However, there is confusion over how to go about integrating sustainability knowledge and skills systemically within bachelor degrees. This paper addresses this challenge, using a case study of an Australian chemical engineering degree to highlight important practical considerations for embedding sustainability at the core of the curriculum. The paper begins with context for considering a systematic process for rapid curriculum renewal. The authors then summarise a 2-year federally funded project, which comprised piloting a model for rapid curriculum renewal led by the chemical engineering staff. Model elements contributing to the renewal of this engineering degree and described in this paper include: industry outreach; staff professional development; attribute identification and alignment; program mapping; and curriculum and teaching resource development. Personal reflections on the progress and process of rapid curriculum renewal in sustainability by the authors and participating engineering staff will be presented as a means to discuss and identify methodological improvements, as well as highlight barriers to project implementation. It is hoped that this paper will provide an example of a formalised methodology on which program reform and curriculum renewal for sustainability can be built upon in other higher education institutions. (Contains 5 tables and 3 figures.) [A list of notes and references is provided.]

Purpose: This paper aims to examine some of the strengths and weaknesses of the use of online tools such as wikis and blogs for assessment purposes, with the aim of proposing future developments and improvements. Design/methodology/approach: The paper utilises a case study approach by examining the outcomes of a new first-year course for all engineering students at the Institution Name that was introduced in 2008. The course, Sustainable Engineering Practice (SEP), gives students an insight into the disciplines of engineering and emphasises the skills required for working in multi-disciplinary teams. It introduces students to the profession of engineering and how it is practised within a sustainable context. Findings: The major assessment task for the course is the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) challenge and, for the first time in the engineering program at the university, wikis and blogs were used as assessment tools to evaluate student progress in meeting the course objectives. Originality/value: The evidence of student reflections in their course blogs, and the discussions of the staff teaching team in course meetings, have been utilised to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the pedagogy adopted. These sources indicated that the use of these tools for assessment was effective, but that some modifications were required to improve outcomes for both staff and students. (Contains 2 tables.)

Purpose: Self- and peer assessment has proved effective in promoting the development of teamwork and other professional skills in undergraduate students. However, in previous research approximately 30 percent of students reported that its use produced no perceived improvement in their teamwork experience. It was hypothesised that a significant number of these students were probably members of a team that would have functioned well without self- and peer assessment and hence the process did not improve their teamwork experience. This paper aims to report the testing of this hypothesis. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reviews some of the literature on self- and peer assessment, outlines the online self- and peer assessment tool SPARKPLUS, and analyses the results of a post-subject survey of students in a large multi-disciplinary engineering design subject. Findings: It was found that students who were neutral as to whether self- and peer assessment improved their teamwork experience cannot be assumed to be members of well-functioning teams. Originality/value: To increase the benefits for all students it is recommended that self- and peer assessment focuses on collaborative peer learning, not just assessment of team contributions. Furthermore, it is recommended that feedback sessions be focused on learning not just assessment outcomes and graduate attribute development should be recorded and tracked by linking development to categories required for professional accreditation. (Contains 4 figures and 1 table.)

This paper reports on an investigation of student engagement with e-learning, using practitioner reflection as a lens. Five e-learning practitioners each provided a case study from their teaching, which was the focus of practitioners' reflective accounts. Each of the practitioners had used e-learning as a way of promoting both learning and engagement in their classrooms, and while the contexts in which they worked were varied, there were some emergent similarities in their experiences. The practitioners' reflections show that e-learning is used as a tool to promote various types of engagement from engineering students; indeed, students' engagement in some cases evolved beyond that which the practitioners had intended or anticipated. While the intended outcomes were certainly achieved, other emergent changes in student engagement were reported by the practitioners.

Since its introduction at the University of Western Sydney (UWS), Australia in 2007, the Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) program has proved a very effective and popular methodology for increasing retention and enhancing student engagement. PASS is based on Supplemental Instruction (SI) which is an international program that provides peer led, interactive study sessions in subjects with relatively high failure rates or which are considered challenging by students (Martin, 2008). Video-based Supplemental Instruction (VSI), which is an offshoot of SI (Martin & Blanc, 1994) provides a more intensive and integrated learning experience based on collaborative processing of pre-recorded lectures for students who lack the prerequisite knowledge to successfully complete subjects. These attributes aptly describe a significant proportion of the students enrolled each semester in a core Engineering Mathematics subject, many of whom fail the subject one or more times. Although the PASS program was offered in this subject, attendance tended to be low, particularly among students who had previously attempted the subject. Therefore, staff from the Student Learning Unit and the Mathematics and Engineering Departments decided to pilot a VSI program as a way of addressing student engagement and progression. This paper provides a case study that details the processes of implementing this pilot in the first semester of 2011. It focuses particularly on the positive outcomes for the attendees who had all previously failed this demanding first year subject. We draw on a range of qualitative and quantitative research data which includes participating students' comments and their results. We recognise the limitations of this study due to the small number of participants and acknowledge that the results are not directly transferable to different contexts. However, we suggest that it offers a pertinent case study which will contribute to the research into VSI as an effective learning modality.

The Faculty of Engineering in an Australian university collaborated with a central academic/educational development unit to design and deliver a teaching development program for all engineering teaching assistants (TAs). This paper discusses the approach taken to promote inclusive education in engineering in a situation with competing priorities. One of the strategies employed in the program aimed at enhancing the TAs' awareness of the diversity of learning styles and abilities within their student cohort with particular reference to students with a learning disability or a mental health condition. Research (Mortimore, 2003) has shown that certain learning styles can be characteristic of a learning disability or mental health condition. A standard learning styles inventory tool was introduced so TAs could identify their own preferences and realize the learning environment can be "disabling" when there is a mismatch between a learning preference and teaching style. Through discussions and activities, TAs developed inclusive teaching strategies which could facilitate learning for all students. The program provided opportunities to discuss other issues related to diversity among students and other members of the university community, and effective communication skills. Changes in the attitude of the engineering TAs and faculty towards this program are discussed.

Traditional teaching approaches are generally teacher-directed, where students are taught in a manner that is conducive to sitting and listening. It is often argued that these approaches may not provide students with valuable learning skills, and rather that non-traditional approaches to teaching and learning might better endow students with such skills. The teaching of mathematics that is usually referred to as "non-traditional" uses constructivist philosophies as its bases; by implicating strategies in which the individual develops, constructs or rediscovers knowledge in an attempt to make sense of his or her universe, or by employing social constructivist ideals which suggest that group work, language and discourse are vital for learning. Also, it is often argued that non-traditional teaching is done using a problem solving approach, where the learner is the problem solver. Non-traditional teaching and learning (NTTL) in mathematics and engineering needs to be well understood so that appropriate and meaningful comparisons with traditional techniques can be made. The computer based teaching technology known as "e-learning" is now often used in tertiary level mathematics and engineering teaching. The e-learning methodology is considered to be more in-line with the non-traditional than the traditional teaching approaches. This paper critically reviews the literature that makes comparisons of the traditional and non-traditional teaching approaches in mathematics and engineering education, and specifically examines the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches along with the manner in which they influence the academic performance of students in mathematics and engineering courses.

For most students assessment guides their study and learning practice. Yet in the literature associated with the first year of study at university, few have mobilised the power of assessment to develop and engage first year undergraduate students. This paper presents a model of assessment for first year students which separates the semester into three overlapping assessment phases: assessment for transition, assessment for development and assessment for achievement. The implementation and usefulness of the model is supported by examples from mathematics, engineering, computing, communication and nursing studies at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). Particular attention is paid to assessments for transition which occur early in the semester and are linked more closely with processes than specific content. Evidence is collated on the success of assessments in improving the participation of students, especially distance education students.

Technology is recognised as playing a part in the changing landscape in higher education; altering delivery modes and providing flexible opportunities for learning. Research into the use of wikis has shown that they provide many opportunities for student learning and the development of twenty-first century skills, however, there has been limited success in their use for collaboration. In this exploratory research, we report on a group wiki project in an engineering management unit at an Australian university. A wiki was introduced to replace the existing group report assessment to add transparency to the task. Each group had their own wiki and students were required to provide feedback to other group wikis which enabled transparency of students' report development and group progress. The research aim was to investigate student perceptions of using a wiki. Students found the wikis helpful for benchmarking their activity against their peers. Students stated that peer feedback had improved their work; however, much of the feedback given by peers was too brief to be constructive, and provided too late to be useful in guiding their work. This paper will be of interest to academics interested in using wikis in their teaching to develop feedback, transparency, and benchmarking.

The laboratory plays an important role in teaching engineering skills. An Electrical Engineering department at an Australian University implemented a reform to monitor and improve student satisfaction with the teaching laboratories. A Laboratory Manager was employed to oversee the quality of 27 courses containing instructional laboratories. Student satisfaction surveys were carried out on all relevant laboratories every year, and the data were used for continuous improvement. This paper will investigate the reforms that were implemented and outline a number of the improvements made. It also examines the program's overall impact on: (1) overall satisfaction; (2) laboratory notes; (3) learning experiences; (4) computer facilities; (5) engineering equipment; and (6) condition of the laboratory. Student satisfaction with the laboratories increased by 32% between 2007 and 2013. The results show that the laboratory notes (activity and clarity) and the quality of the equipment used are among the most influential factors on student satisfaction. In particular, it is important to have notes or resources that explain in some detail how to use and troubleshoot equipment and software used in the laboratory.

Within existing ICT degrees there is a widely-held belief that content must be tailored for different "kinds" of students--often two differing student groups: a technical group requiring detailed Computer Science knowledge and a separate group requiring less technical, more strategic ICT knowledge and skills. Our institution has produced a combined degree that contains both technical and non-technical content taught to a single cohort of students and thus requires a deeper insight into the needs of this diverse group of learners. This paper reports on an assessment of learning styles across our first year students, in order to inform our teaching delivery practices. Our findings inform the development of teaching and assessment materials that better support the diverse needs of students, regardless of their self-selected discipline.

Incorporating engineering concepts into middle school curriculum is seen as an effective way to improve students' problem-solving skills. A selection of findings is reported from a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-based unit in which students in the second year (grade 8) of a three-year longitudinal study explored engineering concepts and principles pertaining to the functioning of simple machines. The culminating activity, the focus of this paper, required the students to design, construct, test, and evaluate a trebuchet catapult. We consider findings from one of the schools, a co-educational school, where we traced the design process developments of four student groups from two classes. The students' descriptions and explanations of the simple machines used in their catapult design are examined, together with how they rated various aspects of their engineering designs. Included in the findings are students' understanding of how their simple machines were simulated by the resources supplied and how the machines interacted in forming a complex machine. An ability to link physical materials with abstract concepts and an awareness of design constraints on their constructions were apparent, although a desire to create a ''perfect'' catapult despite limitations in the physical materials rather than a prototype for testing concepts was evident. Feedback from teacher interviews added further insights into the students' developments as well as the teachers' professional learning. An evolving framework for introducing engineering education in the pre-secondary years is proposed.

Project-based learning (PBL), a learning environment in which projects drive learning, has been successfully used in various courses in the educational programs of different disciplines. However, concerns have been raised as to the breadth of the content covered and, in particular, whether PBL can be applied to specialized subjects without compromising the coverage of the required technical content. This paper discusses the advantages and drawbacks of using the PBL methodology in teaching specialized subjects in electrical power engineering, based on the authors' reflections and student feedback. The design and delivery of a PBL-based course in power system modeling and analysis is used as an example. It is asserted that proper usage of PBL makes it possible to deliver both technical content and generic professional skills in a specialized course. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)

The literature review is an academic genre that has a natural place in theses, dissertations, and other genres such as the lab report. The typical final (fourth) year project in the engineering curriculum is an example where such an extensive review can take place (Krishnan & Kathpalia 2002). Second language students may have special challenges when attempting to write from sources. This article evaluates a program in which the Faculty of Engineering, University of Melbourne, enrolls a culturally and linguistically diverse group of ESL students into its postgraduate coursework (M.A.) and Ph.D. research programs, many of whom also enroll in a semester-long (12 week) English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class called "Presenting Academic Discourse-Engineering." Enrollees include those who do not meet the minimum language requirements and others who are recommended to take the course by their thesis supervisors. These students arrive in Australia with varied levels of English proficiency, diverse cultural backgrounds, and prior educational experiences. Students from Asia often come not only with limited English proficiency but also with other academic practices that may be obstacles to good writing in a Western academic context, including conservative rather than critical learning approaches and issues with establishing an academic voice through writing (Ballard & Clanchy 1984; Ramanathan & Atkinson 1999). Ward (2001) notes that Engineering students in Thailand often learn strategies to avoid reading engineering texts in English in their undergraduate training, a practice which may perhaps extend to other Asian countries. Not surprisingly, a limited ability to read required texts is not conducive to learning to write a literature review. These cultural dispositions may lead to challenges for students and reluctance to accept the value of extended reading and writing. A number of students in all four semesters studied for this paper (2002-2003) noted the EAP course was their first experience with critically evaluating and writing about sources, and several students referred to the challenges of reading extended texts alluded to by Ward (2001). This paper has foregrounded the need for students to understand and engage in critical analysis through an assessment process that culminates in a literature review task and oral presentation based on discipline-specific research sources. The research students in the program had an opportunity within the course to begin drafting authentic literature reviews for their research projects and receive feedback on the communicative quality of the text. Steps toward critical appraisal in a literature review are provided.

The Australian National University (ANU) and the University of South Australia (UniSA) have embarked on Federally-funded project to collaborate in the design, development and delivery of a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in engineering. The collaboration investigates new ways to bring together the strengths and discipline expertise of each institution to the students of both universities, utilising blended teaching and learning approaches. The collaboration brings much change--at the organisational level in the blending of programs, at the staff level in their approaches to teaching and at the students' level in their approaches and engagement with cross-institutional blended learning. This paper focuses on how change management principles were used to guide a systematic approach to engaging students into the learning culture associated with the Engineering Hubs and Spokes Project's theme--"Advanced Collaboration for Excellence". (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

This paper presents the strategies used for effective teaching and skill development in integrated circuit (IC) design using project-based learning (PBL) methodologies. It presents the contexts in which these strategies are applied to IC design courses at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, and the National Institute of Applied Science (INSA), Toulouse, France. Collaborations among the faculty members of the two institutions have produced a set of learning resources and design tools to support the development of industry-relevant design skills and lifelong learning skills. At the pedagogical level, the emphasis is on the development of practical circuit design, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills rather than the mastery of complex circuit design tools. The courses enable students to learn about the most recent technological developments and their implications, using a set of user-friendly tools. The PBL methodologies, intuitive design tools, and latest technology models have consistently produced high levels of student satisfaction with the overall quality of the courses at the two institutions. (Contains 25 figures and 3 tables.)

This paper puts forward the view that engineering educators have a responsibility to prepare graduates for engineering work and careers. The current literature reveals gaps between the competencies required for engineering work and those developed in engineering education. Generic competencies feature in these competency gaps. Literature suggests that improving the development of generic competencies in engineering graduates has met with barriers. One identified problem is that a relatively low status is assigned to generic competencies in engineering education. This review focuses on competencies that are required by professional engineers across all engineering disciplines, in Australia, Europe, New Zealand, and the USA. The literature suggests that engineering educators should focus on developing "generic engineering competencies" rather than separate generic competencies and engineering competencies. A method, developed at the University of Western Australia for identifying the generic engineering competencies required by engineers graduating in Australia, is outlined.

This paper reports the integration of supplementary training in academic literacy, for those without the assumed entry standard, into a standard electrical engineering program without compromising any other educational objectives. All students who commenced an engineering degree were tested as part of their first session's assessment activities. Those identified as having inadequate academic literacy were directed to study a specifically designed credit-bearing course, which is controlled by the Engineering Faculty but was designed and is taught in collaboration with academic literacy teachers. Students who completed this course responded positively and also demonstrated measurable improvement in their communication skills. The approach has alleviated the skepticism about teaching academic literacy usually found amongst engineering faculty staff and has been adopted by the wider Engineering Faculty. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Remote and virtual laboratory classes are an increasingly prevalent alternative to traditional hands-on laboratory experiences. One of the key issues with these modes of access is the provision of adequate audiovisual (AV) feedback to the user, which can be a complicated and resource-intensive challenge. This paper reports on a comparison of two studies of remote and virtual access to hardware, one with rich AV feedback and one without. The comparison shows that the learning outcomes of the remote access mode are dependent upon the richness of the feedback; the learning outcomes of the simulated access mode are largely robust to an absence of feedback. The students' preferences are affected by the feedback, with a clear preference for richer feedback. (Contains 4 tables and 14 figures.)

This paper investigates the impact of web based lecture recordings on learning and attendance at lectures. Student opinions regarding the perceived value of the recordings were evaluated in the context of usage patterns and final marks, and compared with attendance data and student perceptions regarding the usefulness of lectures. The availability of recordings was not seen to impact lecture attendance, although students showed some tendency to listen to the recording for a missed lecture. Students who achieved a high mark tended to supplement lecture attendance with recording usage more than students who achieved a low mark, but they did so with greater variation. If students perceived that a learning experience was of value to their learning, they were more likely to use it. Individual case studies describing perceptions, usage patterns, and attendance records of selected students highlight the fact that there is great variation in successful learning patterns, and suggest that engagement is an important factor impacting learning. Although the use of recordings to supplement lectures was seen to enhance the learning of some students, its uptake and effectiveness was not uniform across the cohort. This observation highlights the need for a range of learning modes in engineering education, appealing to a diverse set of individual learning styles. Future work is described in the context of these findings. (Contains 2 tables and 7 figures.)