2009 International Conference on Engineering Education (lCEED 2009), December 7-8, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Nurturing Personal Skills Development: Model of monitoring and assessment of student centred learning

Alias Bin Masek

Technical Education Faculty University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia aliasmasek@gmail.com

Abstract-Student centered learning has long time been introduced in the local polytechnics to enhance student's learning in technical skills. Learning is believed to be much more effective

when student undergoing group projects including lab works, computer assisted learning, group discussion, practical works and etc. But somehow there is some space for current practice to have some improvement in terms of its implementation strategy.

We found that most of the assessments took place only at the end of the project completion. The criteria much focus on content knowledge rather than to view the evaluation process from wider perspective. This wider perspective importantly refers on nurturing student personal skills development. As a result, the

student's ability to apply knowledge in the workplace was claimed poor by most of the employers. Therefore, this study aims to look into the possible ways of adaptation of the existing system by developing the best practice guideline model of

monitoring and assessment specifically in technical skills program in electrical engineering course. The final product is a

rubric that will nurture student performance in personal skills during the learning process.

Keywords-student centred learning; personal skills; group project, POPBL.

I. INTRODUCTION

As another path in our educational system towards producing engineers, polytechnics become the second choice of students who are interested in technical skills in engineering courses [3]. Students, who joint polytechnic usually, graduate with diploma in engineering with proficiencies in technical skills. This will provide them with wider opportunities to get place in industrial sector while some of them pursuing degree in engineering in local universities.

At this grass root level of introducing in depth engineering proficiencies, polytechnics have been applied student centered learning in their curriculum. This includes the group projects, lab works, computer assisted learning, group discussion and etc. These activities seems really effective to train skill workers, however the influence of conventional approach of monitoring and assessment seem a dearth to this system.

Unlike what has been practicing in Project Oriented Problem Based Learning (POPBL), monitoring and assessment process much focuses on personal skills since student in the early years of the course [18] [19]. It is believed that skills such

This research is sponsored by the Research Management and Innovation Center, University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia.

978-1-4244-4844-9/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE 199

Prof. Dr. Sulaiman Bin Yamin

Technical Education Faculty University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia sulaimn@uthm.edu.my

as teamwork, problem solving, communication, and collaborative learning skills [2] [7] could lead student mastery in both content knowledge and technical skills. Thus, we think that this approach should be applicable and adaptable to strengthen the existing method in polytechnic's student centered learning practice.

II. RELATED WORKS

Even though POPBL still infancy in Malaysia [8], several journals published have shown the Malaysian educators' initiative to implement it in engineering field [1] [7] [9] [10] [11]. This initiative has triggered by the unique of the POPBL curriculum to enhance student's learning. Currently, most of the local engineering universities have had been conducting pilot project to get experience on it [1] [9] [11]. However, POPBL never been found implemented in any polytechnics in Malaysia.

Unlike in Singapore, Republic polytechnic has defmed their POPBL version and successfully in implementation [12]. This version of POPBL has been reputable in developing student professionalism in engineering. To learn from that lesson, we should develop our own model of POPBL that suit the local educational system and industrial needs. But this process can be hard especially to introduce a unique evolution and characteristics of our own POPBL version [4].

Despite many strategies offered in implementing POPBL into educational institution, we think that the best strategy is to implement POPBL component by components. Before going on to revamp the whole system, it's better to minimize the risk by adapting one potential component at first place. In this paper, monitoring and assessment is the said component to be adapted into current student centered learning in polytechnic delivery system.

We think that the current practice of student centered learning is the best method to infuse student with intended learning objectives. But this method seems required some reformation in the monitoring and assessment system to more focus on nurturing personal skills development. According to [5], beside focus on student's attitude and skills training, others skills also need to be infused into student professionalism such as communication, teamwork, lifelong learning and ethic. This has led to our effort to design our own

2009 International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED 2009), December 7-8, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

version of POPBL, and this paper is a proposal to develop a rubric of monitoring and assessment method as practice in POPBL that adaptable into current student centered learning practices in polytechnics.

We first developing the model according to specific needs and further investigate the model effectiveness. The specific needs refer to personal skills demand from both industrial sectors and educational institutions. Subsequently tries to match the criteria with the monitoring and assessment method during the student learning process.

III. PROBLEM STATEMENT

The purpose of the study is to develop a monitoring and assessment model for student centered learning and it further to investigate the model effectiveness in nurturing student's personal skills development. Without specific model, monitoring and assessment practice seems focus on the product rather than process. Current practices in polytechnic much focus on content knowledge rather than student development during the learning process.

IV. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research questions outlined as the following: 1) What are the current criteria demands on personal

skills by the industrial sectors in technical field (electrical engineering related position)?

2) What are industrial sectors and educational institutions need in desiring student's personal skills?

3) How the monitoring method is could match the assessment strategy to promote student's Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) in personal skills?

4) To what extent the model is effective compared to current practice in promoting student's CQI in personal skills?

V. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Adapted from [17] [18] and [19], the steps toward project completion are separated into initial phase, group project stage and final product phase. Each phase is incorporated with particular personal skills attributes pertinent to an exemplar criteria list that will be produced after completing the first phase of study. Here, these attributes become the skills to be nurtured to student during group project phase.

Since the focus is on the group project phase, the monitoring and assessment process should follow the bell curve grading scheme. Here, the independent variable f(x) could be referred as the grading proportion, frequency of assessment, frequency of monitoring, frequency giving feedback, and criterion emphasized, while dependent variable f(y) could be referred as student performance and student final achievement. The graphical explanation clearly defmed as in figure 1.

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Figure 1. Rubric development conceptual frameworks

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Adapted from [18]

Both content knowledge and personal skills are equally important to student, and we believe that student could learn much throughout the group project [1] [7] [11]. Student will also responsible and independent on their learning [11] [19], besides constructing own knowledge through self directed learning [10] [16] [19]. As for that reason, the conceptual framework of monitoring and assessment rubric will much focus on the personal skills development within the group project stage. This believed that focusing on these elements during the early years of the course will eventually lead student to gain content knowledge through lifelong learning skills and personal skills that developed.

The works to develop the rubric refers to particular strategy adapted from existing literatures. This involves three main elements which constitute industry, student and educator. The industry becomes the main reference by both student and educator during the development process. Here, student will also involves through "negotiable contracting" process that modified from the original authors [14] [20]. Within this, student and educator will join together to construct the rubric contents, to critique and contribute to the rubric developed and as a result, educator could enhance in giving and receiving feedback to/from student [20]. Moreover, student will understand the evaluation process and so they strive to achieve the criteria for good works [6] [14]. Those elements are in contact as shown in figure 2:

According to [13], as one of the curriculum components, the assessment methods and procedures must be developed in systematic. Moreover, most of the curriculum development nowadays is involving round table discussion with the industrial key players. Thus, pertinent to this concept, the rubric of monitoring and assessment development will be based on the identified occupational need of particular occupational field [13]. The specific competencies and requirements from particular job accumulated in the forms of criteria. However, this research is limited to focus on personal

2009 International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED 2009), December 7-8, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

skills criteria demand on particular electrical engineering related position.

Figure 2. Operational framework

Adapted from: [6) [I3) [14) and [20)

A. Personal Skills The personal skills term that used throughout this paper is

defmed as individual competencies during learning process. In the recent literatures, various terms have been used including process skills, personal transferable skills, soft skills, generic skills, core skills, key skills, professional skills and etc. Each term identical in meaning, and the attributes listed seems overlapped. Thus, the personal skills framework was formulated as communication skills, teamwork, problem solving, self management, and self evaluation. However the final framework of attributes will depend on industrial and educational institutions needs.

VI. METHODOLOGY

The research is organized into three phases which are the data collection phase, the rubric development phase and the experimental study phase.

A. Data Collection Phase Data collection will be using questionnaires, interviews,

and document analysis. Respondent will involve them among industrial workers (electrical engineering related position), and educational institutional players (lecturers and expert from university). This phase aims to collect both the industrial and educational institution needs in desiring student's personal skills. As shown in figure 3, the gaps and intersect between real and ideal criteria will form the valuable information to construct an exemplar criteria list.

B. Rubric Development Phase At this phase, student and educator will apply the modified

negotiable contracting process to determine the criteria of good work. This process however refers to the exemplar

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criteria list that produced at the first phase. The discussion of the rubric development mainly based on variable stated above.

C. Experimental Study Phase The experimental study will be designed to examine the

effectiveness of the rubric developed. Sample of respondent will involve the students who undergoing group project in technical skills program in electrical engineering course. The comparison will include 2 groups of students which are; a) Students who involve in negotiable contracting, and undergoing the monitoring and assessment using novel rubric (experimental group), and b) Students who undergoing the existing practice of monitoring and assessment (control group). Both groups will be scheduled to sit for several skills tests along the group project completion. The data will be analyzed quantitatively and will include the multivariate analysis. To support the fmdings, the qualitative data also will be collected through unstructured interview and observation.

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Figure 3. General flow of research methodology and process

VII. SIGNIFICANT OF THE RESEARCH

The model will be used to create a mutual effective contact through monitoring and assessment activities between student and educators. This might happen because the rubric constructed by mutual agreement through negotiable contracting process. The model will also facilitate educator's role to scaffold student during learning process. In this context, the educator will become the effective facilitator. The educator will understand the parts to be emphasized during

2009 International Conference on Engineering Education (lCEED 2009), December 7-8, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

monitoring student progresses, giving feedback, planning the right time to assess, and to assess the right area. This inline with social constructivist perspective of dynamic assessment approach in which the performance of individual being assess is mediated by another individual who intended to inform an instruction [15].

By the adjustment on the grading proportion, frequency of assessment, frequency of monitoring, frequency giving feedback, and criterion emphasized is likely to increase student competencies and abilities in these particular personal skills. At this level, these competencies and abilities could help student to sustain in our educational system. As for long term effect, the skills seem important to an individual as a future engineer in order to deal with the continual changing of technological and organizational demands at workplace soon.

The rubric model of monitoring and assessment is believed could attract student interest, motivate to learn and at the same time encourage student to take ownership on their learning. As a result, student performance and achievement will be improved in both content knowledge and personal skills that will lead to the production of excellent student that meet the global demands.

VIII. CONCLUSION

As concluding remark, this research paper is a proposal to develop a model as a medium reference for local educators in undertaking group project. It is an initiative to improve existing system and the initial effort to move into POPBL implementation in polytechnics. We hope that the strategy to incorporate all three stakeholders in developing this rubric could yield a valuable outcome. The conceptual framework introduced that concern on personal skills development hopefully will increase the impact of the monitoring and assessment practice especially in engineering field. This is important in rising student's satisfaction and fairness to become more responsible and independent on their learning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This project is funded by the Research Management and Innovation Center, University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM).

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