Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 236 de 957
continuous improvement in the teaching-learning system. A main objective is to achieve a
more prominence roll of the students in the educational model and that they take more
responsibility for their own learning.
A very important part of that process is the updating of traditional practices. The chosen
way for the new Mechanical Engineering Degree (MED) at the University of La Rioja (UR)
is the incorporation of more dynamic and active educational methodologies into the new
subjects (ME, 2005). These methodologies are mainly developed for an improvement in
the quality of the practical skills acquired by students. This is a very important idea in
engineering teaching, that is to say, a higher level in practical skills gives to the student
higher ability to solve real problems.
This proposal is based in the fusion of practical classes of two compulsory technical
subjects to create a common way of teaching. The case of study is focus in practical classes
of materials testing, manufacturing works, and easy research tasks such as data collection,
re-adjustment of measuring equipment, or checking results.
Professors who develop this methodology are forced to make many changes, but they also
will have the feeling it will improve the “capacity of students for applying knowledge in
practice” (generic competence) (Prince, 2004). Besides, the number of students interested
in laboratory practices seems to be easily increased, reducing the students´ apathy. In
some way, it will make the course more attractive, resulting in more motivated students
and higher study yields. In the opinion of the authors, these are the main reasons why this
work is important for researching in engineering education.
In summary, the main issue is to determine what level of students´ motivation
(Ames&Archer, 1988) is achieved after one semester in both mentioned subjects. The
initial hypothesis of work was that the interest shown by students would be higher when
the method proposed in the article was applied to them, than in those cases in which
traditional methods were used.
In this article we present the procedure, results and our analysis and conclusions in
relation with the evaluation done by Engineering, Data Mining and Numerical Simulations
(EDMANS) research group.
Background
In 2010 a report based on Delphi analysis was made in order to know the needs and future
trends in the labour market for new undergraduates and graduates from the UR. The
report states which are the three most important generic competences required for a
Technical Industrial Engineer in Mechanical Engineering (TIEME) (1st cycle degree). The
conclusion of the report was that the labour market is demanding training in complex
problem solving abilities and practical skills whose are frequently at odds with traditional
university teaching practices.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011