Assessing Opportunities for Self-Study and Out-of-Class Activities in a Prescriptive High Contact-Hour Engineering Curriculum

Contribution: This work identifies some attributes of a prescriptive high contact-hour engineering curriculum that could be limiting the development of core skills among engineering students. The findings are put together to develop a guideline for curriculum review that optimizes characteristic student academic hours for in-and out-of-class educational activities. Background: One of the identified factors that contribute to developing core technical and soft skills among engineering students is the amount and nature of the academic workload stipulated by the curriculum. An implication of a curriculum with a high quantity of instruction (QI) (class contact hours) is a deficiency in self-directed learning; an activity believed to support the development of critical thinking and lifelong learning skills among students. Research Question: 1) How does the QI of a prescriptive high contact-hour engineering program affect the time for self-study (TSS)? 2) Are there some features of the curriculum of such programs that can be adapted for controlling QI and TSS? Methodology: A narrative review of a curriculum guideline document was carried out. Using an earlier proposed model that expresses TSS as a function of QI, an analysis of TSS and QI characteristics of six universities awarding the same engineering degree was presented. Findings: Given an average weekly contact hour of 27.75, students in the studied engineering programs are likely to have 60% less TSS in comparison to global counterparts. By addressing some characteristics of the curriculum, these numbers can be improved for more out-of-class activities that foster the development of core technical and soft skills. © 1963-2012 IEEE.