Evaluation of “Year 1 Assessment Week” in promoting transferable skills among first year chemical engineering students

Publication date: January 2013 Source:Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 8, Issue 1 Author(s): Mei Fong Chong , Denny Kok Sum Ng The Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, The University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus has introduced “Year 1 Assessment Week” to replace the conventional coursework assessment method. During the assessment week, the first year students are required to conduct activities in groups. The activities involve elements of experiment, analysis, interpretation and presentation. This paper evaluates and analyse the impacts of such assessment system in promoting transferable skills among the students. Three stages of reflection (Teaching Activity, Reflecting and Interpreting) were conducted throughout the study. Questionnaires completed by the students, feedback from lecturers and self-observations are taken as the measurement of this study. Based on the results from the questionnaires, it is noted that most of the students agreed or strongly agreed with the transferable skills of “data sorting”, “manipulating and analysing”, “logical reasoning”, “communication”, “creativity and innovation”, “safety and teamwork” and “independent learning” were being applied during the assessment week. However, they were uncertain on how the transferable skills of “working within limited and conflicting data” and “information technology” could be applied in the activities during the assessment week. Most of ...
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - Category: Chemistry Source Type: research