Curriculum building and student progression in two LTH engineering study programmes

Abstract

Engineering education is organised as programmes consisting of chains of courses. Formal programme objectives integrate skills, scientific attitudes and engineering knowledge. However, assessment of learning and educational quality mainly focuses individual course units. It is our concern that study programme quality and student progression are hard to evaluate and stimulate in the prevailing modularised system. We have therefore investigated progression directions and stages and designed activities that will evaluate and stimulate integrated engineering capacities and evaluate progression in 1st to 4th year students of chemical- and biotechnology engineering programmes. To make the aim of progression explicit we interviewed students, alumni, teaching staff and senior industrial staff, thus elucidating core educational and professional values. Students develop a sense of becoming engineers late in their training (typically around the 7th semester). They all emphasized problem-solving abilities as the most prominent competence. Teachers focussed more on subject discipline content than other interviewed groups. Students and industry go beyond subject discipline and request professional social skills. In the session we will report on the use of case methodology to stimulate engineering programme progression.