Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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considered difficult at first, thereby decreasing the percentage of students who abandoned
the subject. The feedback provided by the students has been very positive
Significantly, introducing science projects in the subject had achieved not only proposed
objectives but also some additional benefits have been found:
• Acquisition of specialized knowledge and vocabulary and developing students’
communication skills.
• Enhancing public speaking skills. Students were able to procduce highly organized
and articulate speech.
• Increasing students’ attention towards the subject, as seen in certain groups who
even developed projects well above expectations.
• Helping students to develop mathematical and qualitative models based on
experimentation.
• Development of seeking and information literacy skills, since, as many authors
established (Barranoik, 2001; Scott & O'Sullivan, 2005), students still demonstrate
several lacks when selecting searching terms or evaluating the credibility or
accuracy of web sites.
• Increasing student-teacher and student-student interaction which in turn
improved cooperative learning.
• Stimulating teachers’ motivation. As it has been found that students’ degree of
interest is higher, they participate more in class and understand better what they
are told. Being this an advantage, innovative methods have also increased the
workload of the teaching staff so cooperation among teachers is now more
necessary.
Finally, we can conclude that this activity was successful in motivating students about the
acquisition of general and transversal skills. According to Fatimah Ali el al. (2006),
organization and planning, oral and written communication, cooperative work, critical
thinking or creativity will often mark important professional opportunities in an
engineer’s career so University needs to endow students with technical as well as
communication skills.
References
Barranoik, L. (2001). Research success with senior high school students. School Libraries
Worldwide, 7(1), 28−45.
Bejarano, Y., Levine, T., Olshtain, E., & Steiner, J. (1997). The skilled use of interaction
strategies: Creating a framework for improved small-group communicative
interaction in the language classroom. System, 25(2), 203-214.
Born, M. (1943), Experiment and Theory in Physics, Cambridge: University Press.
Chickering, W. & Gamson, Z. F. (1991). Applying the seven principles for good practice in
undergraduate education. New Directions in Teaching and Learning, 47, San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011