Complete thesis - Murdoch University

Learner characteristicsThe work of Lumsdaine and Lumsdaine (1995) suggests that between 20% and 40% of studentintake to engineering is lost through not catering for students with strengths in communicationsand team work or creative problem solving, synthesis and design. In addition,traditional engineering education does little to provide students with the systemic perspectiveon individual subjects (a global perspective) they need to function effectively, and the oneswho take too long to get it by themselves are at risk academically (Felder and Brent, 2005).Practitioners studies indicate that the Lumsdaines’ ‘lost’ skills are those considered necessaryfor competent professional practice. This practitioner perspective is discussed in Chapter2. In summary, industry requires personable professionals who can function in an adaptive/creative,collaborative environment. As Turley (1991) notes, education should supportthe development of differential skills (namely interpersonal skills and personal attributes)through the creation of learning situations which stress these.Figure 6.2: Kolb Learning Style Inventory 1st year Engineering students 2001The ENG260 cohort for 2002 is within the group captured in Figure 6.2. The majority ofstudents fall into the Converger/Assimilator profiles expected of engineers (Kolb, 1984) 1 .The learning style of the Assimilator students is catered for in traditional Engineering teach-1 discussed in Appendix A; see specifically Table A.1 for the Murdoch breakdown. The results from TableA.2 in the same appendix highlight the mismatch between student learning styles and traditional engineeringteaching: showing a clear preference for active, sensory learning amongst students but strong preferences forreflective learning by staff251