The paper reports on a study carried out on the role of the civil engineering industry in ensuring quality in engineering education. A questionnaire was administered to civil engineering students at four Technikons. The main emphasis was on mentoring, work assignments during the experiential learning period and the overall evaluation of the training programme by the students. The responses showed that students derived educational benefit from the experiential learning programme and that they were generally satisfied with the mentoring and work assignments. In this paper suggestions are made to enhance the role of industry in engineering education through the experiential learning programme and mention is made of areas requiring attention.

There is a difference between engineering practice and classroom-based training. While industry will continue to seek graduates with good grades, Marini and Tillman (1998) state that employers are also looking for so much more these days. They require well-developed and proven skills. Thus industry expects academic institutions to produce future employees that have the necessary skills to function in the world of work. Skills are generally acquired through experiential learning, defined as an activity, which facilitates the development of experiential knowledge (Burnard 1988). Some of the skills can be developed within academic institutions, for example, subject specific skills such as laboratory skills. The workplace on the other hand is the right environment in which experiential knowledge for the world of work can be developed. Academic institutions, particularly those that offer vocationally applicable programmes, therefore, incorporate the experiential learning period in which students spend their time in industry in their study programmes. Since the programmes offered at Technikons are vocationally applicable, experiential learning is an inherent feature of education and training.

It is in this context that the role of industry in engineering education becomes apparent. Industry therefore plays an important role in providing learning opportunities through which the students develop their experiential knowledge in engineering and therefore the opportunity to develop the required skills for the world of work.

This study is based on the view that academic institutions regularly perform feedback sessions for classroom learning and therefore an investigation of the students’ assessment of the experiential learning is also essential. We need to know whether industry is doing enough to maximise their contribution to enhance the quality of engineering education. Is industry doing enough to ensure that the students get to know as much as possible about the engineering profession while they are in industry? Do the students experience the commitment of their immediate supervisors in their everyday work during the training? It is the author’s opinion that answers to these questions through student feedback, should give us an indication of industry’s commitment to play its role in engineering education.

The purpose of the study was therefore to measure the actual student perception of the experiential learning programme. On the basis of the above questions, the emphasis in this paper concerns the civil engineering students’ perception about positive aspects, mentoring, work assignment and the overall rating of the experiential learning programme, to reflect the role being played by industry in engineering education. This study is limited to the civil engineering industry.

The above-mentioned aspects of experiential learning are among the variables that, according to Apostolides and Looye (1997), constitute elements of the overall rating of the co-operative experience. While the management of co-operative experience as practiced in the USA is different in detail to the management of experiential learning, the principles of co-operative education are, by definition applicable to experiential learning. According to Horn (1991), co-operative education is defined as a system that integrates a student’s academic studies with work experiences. Experiential learning is an inherent feature of the education and training at Technikons.

Early in 1999, departments of civil engineering of five Technikons, randomly chosen, were invited to participate in the study. Four Technikons responded positively and were either sent the requested number of questionnaires for the students or e-mailed/faxed a copy of the questionnaire to be administered by the supervisor of experiential learning in the department at the respective Technikons. This study is based on the completed questionnaires obtained from Vaal Triangle Technikon, Technikon Witwatersrand, Peninsula Technikon and the Port Elizabeth Technikon.

The enquiry was conducted by means of a questionnaire, which addressed selected issues of experiential learning. The questionnaire mainly required the students to indicate their rating to a particular item on a five-point scale, A to E, with A being the highest rating and E the lowest rating to the item. For example, responses for A, could be; very much/very high/very satisfied/excellent and always, depending on the item being considered. Other items on the questionnaire required the students to make statements about particular aspects they valued most and on what they perceived as problems in general, during their experiential learning period.

The questionnaire was administered to students, who had just returned from their experiential learning period and had been with industry for at least six months. There were 48 participants from Technikon Witwatersrand, 36 from Port Elizabeth Technikon, 26 from Peninsula Technikon and 15 from Vaal Triangle Technikon, making a total sample of 125 participants.

The results in this paper are presented broadly, while a detailed statistical analysis is to be presented in another paper.

Where are the students placed?

Table 1 shows the type of employer and the distribution of the student placement in each category. The total number exceeds the total number of participants from the institutions, because some students worked for two different organizations in the two six month sessions comprising the year of training.

Table 1: Placement of students by type of employer

The highest number of students worked for contractors and the second highest for consultants. While no analysis of regional distribution of employers was made, on the basis of this study, government departments as well as municipalities could do more to offer places for experiential learning. NGOs are not considered traditional civil engineering organizations, but they could offer a good learning experience for the civil engineering students as well.

What are the advantages/positive aspects of experiential learning? Table 2 gives a list of what most of the students cited as advantages/positive aspects of experiential learning. Listed are the items that had a frequency percent of more than 20. The results in the table are based on the written statements. Most students listed at least two aspects they considered to be advantages of going through the experiential learning programme.

Table 2: Advantages/positive aspects of experiential learning.

The non-technical skills as indicated by Marini and Tillman (1998) and based on the study by De Lange (1996) were grouped under the following: responsibility, communicating effectively, teamwork and working in harmony with others. The results indicate that all students felt that there was an opportunity to acquire these skills, although not all indicated all the skills. Responsibility was the most frequently mentioned.

In analysing the responses to this aspect and the others that follow, an indicator, referred to in this paper as a Positive Rating Percent (PRP) is used. A PRP in this case is the sum of the number of responses to the rating A and B (highest and second highest) for each item, expressed as a percentage of the total sample responses to that item. In this paper a strong positive indicator to an item is taken to be a PRP of 75 and above.

Table 3 shows the PRP for items considered to contribute towards experiential knowledge development. The results show a strong positive indicator with respect to the item on briefing by immediate supervisors, before tasks were given to the students.

Table 3: Perception on mentoring

One however notices that the students felt that they acquired more knowledge through workmates, PRP of 77, than they did through their immediate supervisor. This is to be expected, because they spend more time doing their work with workmates than with the supervisor. On the other hand a PRP of 67 is an indication of general satisfaction with the extent to which knowledge was acquired through the supervisor. The essential thing is that the supervisors are giving guidance to the students.

What is the perception on work assignments?

The scope of the experiences in which a student is engaged, is an essential element of experiential learning, and it is assumed that this would affect the student’s overall evaluation of the experiential learning programme, among other factors. Table 4 shows the distribution of the PRP for the items considered as contributing to the students’ perceptions of work assignments.

Table 4: Perceptions on work assignments

The fact that tasks given were manageable and understood can to a large extent be contributed to the fact that the supervisors briefed the students. The response on the relevance of the tasks to the professional growth in civil engineering, which is more of a personal interpretation, has a PRP of 83, also a strong positive indicator. The strong positive indicators for the items on work assignments show that the majority of the students were satisfied with the work assignments.

What is the overall perception of the experiential learning programme? Table 5 shows the overall rating of the experiential learning programme. This includes the extent to which the courses covered at the Technikons prepared the students for experiential learning.

Table 5: Overall rating of the experiential learning programme.

Only one of the above items has a PRP greater than 75, which means that the items were not highly rated by the participants. The indication is that of general satisfaction, although generally, there were no strong positive indicators.

It is interesting to note that the overall rating for the experiential learning programme is low with a PRP of 58, yet the students indicated a high rating for all the items on work assignments, (see Table 4) which is considered a variable for rating experiential learning. Other factors, other than work assignments only, therefore contribute to what the students perceive as a good learning experience.

The item on the extent to which the courses covered at the Technikons prepared the students for experiential learning has a PRP of 50, which is indeed way below a PRP of 75 and therefore not a strong positive indicator according to the definition in this paper. It should be mentioned that the majority of the students (85 percent), who participated in the study, went on experiential learning after the second semester. At this point they would have covered enough material and would be better prepared for the experiential learning.

On the other hand a PRP of 77 is a strong positive indicator that the students were able to establish a clear link between the theory covered at the Technikons and the tasks given to them. The students were thus offered an opportunity to make a linkage between theory and practice. However, it seems that from the students’ perspective, there are other aspects that they consider important in order to be adequately prepared for experiential learning. Further examination of this issue and of what constitutes a good experiential learning programme, from the students’ points of view is essential.

What are the major problems?

Since we have looked at the advantages and the positive aspects of experiential learning, it is also necessary to consider what the participants in the study saw as problems. A good number of the participants, 33 percent, either indicated that there were no problems or did not respond to the item at all. The aim is not to list all the problems indicated, thus table 6 gives what could be a summary of the main problems which were indicated by at least more than 10 percent of the participants.

Table 6: Problems of experiential learning programme

While the lack of visitation by academic supervisors was mentioned by as many as 40 percent of the participants, this was more prevalent in one institution. It is however, a problem for academic institutions to address.

On the issue of the lack of structured performance assessment, the students indicated, in different ways, that there is a likelihood that the logbooks are simply signed by the supervisor without verification that the work has indeed been covered. In contrast, in the management of co-operative education programme, there is a component of student appraisal by the employer-supervisor (Apostilides and Looye, 1997). This is not a common practice in experiential learning as pointed out by the students.

About 12 percent of the participants felt that they were given what they called ‘school jobs’, meaning it was work of a low level. Example statements were; "… the training did not offer me personal and technical development at all, but confusion and regrets for doing civil engineering" or "… they don’t trust you much in handling much office work" and "... employer not giving you challenging work avoiding to pay you as much as you are worth". The first example was from a student who worked in a government department and the two other examples are from students who worked for consultants. Examination of the responses by the participants who indicated that they felt they were given low level jobs, to the item on whether they liked the work they did, revealed that these students rarely liked or did not like the work they did. There was therefore a consistency in their responses. The feeling of being undermined can demotivate a person as shown by the comment in the first example.

11 percent of the students felt that industry did not understand what was expected of them in the provision of the experiential learning programme. By having a good partnership between industry and academic institutions, this problem can be dealt with. Academic institutions should however be aware that the type of work assignment given to the students depends on the type of project the organization is involved in.

The study presented in this paper sought to examine how the civil engineering industry is playing its role in ensuring quality in engineering education by examining the students’ perception of the experiential learning programme. By providing excellent educational experiences for students, industry should realize that it is a win-win arrangement for all parties involved (Freeland et al, 1998). Benefits of a good experiential learning programme include the impact on the attitude, commitment, and motivation of the students to pursue the civil engineering profession. Organizations with a good experiential training programme will establish a good reputation and in turn attract not only highly qualified but also highly motivated prospective employees from the graduating population.

It is the author’s opinion that the future of quality experiential learning programmes lies in the establishment of a partnership model between industry and academic institutions, on the basis of common ground, common interest, and the realization that the experiential learning activity is of mutual benefit.

Resources for training and developing students should be clearly identified in organizations and training managers in consultation with their technical counterparts, should be responsible for the training and development needs of the students, where it is not yet the practice. They should set the standards linked to the experiential learning programme framework as set out by academic institutions. The guiding principle should be that the training is relevant to the professional growth of the students. Since industry will make an investment in experiential learning programmes, one would expect industry to evaluate their investment. Therefore, the expected skills to be attained by the students should be evaluated by industry. This should lead to a well-structured and managed experiential learning programme by both industry and the academic institutions. In this way, the role of industry in engineering education will become an essential feature in the training of engineers, technologists, and technicians.

From the results of the responses in this study, it appears that the civil engineering industry is playing a satisfactory role in engineering education through the experiential learning programme. The students were generally satisfied with the work assignments and they experienced the commitment of their immediate supervisors during the training. The students did indeed benefit from the experiential learning programme.

There are however, areas of concern as shown by the low rating of the overall training programme. It is therefore suggested that further studies be carried out to establish the variables that influence the quality of the student’s work experience and what constitutes a good experiential training from the student’s point of view.

The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance given in the administration of the questionnaire by Dr H Potgieter formerly Peninsula Technikon, Mr A E Goosen of Vaal Triangle Technikon and Mr D P Lange of Technikon Witwatersrand.

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Freeland, R M, Marini, R C and Weighhart, S. (1998) Moving partnerships between co-op institutions and co-op employers into the next century. Journal of Cooperative Education, XXXIII, (2), 17 – 27.

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