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FACULTYOFCIVILENGINEERING UNIVERSITITEKNOLOGIMARA SHAHALAM

OPENENDEDLABORATORYACTIVITIESStudentsVersion FromPrescriptivetoInvestigative Introduction


Thisbriefarticleiswritten forthebenefitofthestudentstohave aclearerpictureofthe conductofthe laboratory activities at the Faculty. Students are expected to fully and actively participate in the open endedactivitiesinordertorealizetheobjectivesoftheactivities. Previous methods of teaching laboratory courses are basically in the form of fully guided assignment. The methods are described as prescriptive or traditional methods. However these methods are now no longeradequatewithinthecontextofoutcomebasedlearningenvironments(1).Itcouldnotprovidethe platform where students are given opportunities to explore their own simulation and design their own experimentalworks. TheEngineeringAccreditationManual(EAC)2012(2)stipulatedthat: Students should receive sufficient laboratory work to complement engineering theory thatislearntthroughlectures.Thelaboratoryshouldhelpstudentsdevelopcompetence inexecuting experimentalwork. Throughout theprogramme,thereshouldbeadequate provision for laboratory or similar investigative work, which will develop the young engineertheconfidencetodealwithnewandunusualengineeringproblem. Thustheneedsforanopenendedlaboratoryisemphasizedinenhancingindependentlearningcultures and inculcate creativity and innovativeness of students. In a fully openended laboratory activity, students will be exposed to a practical problem and they are required (as a group) to determine the objectives and scope, identifying apparatus needed and preparing the methodology, running the experiment and finally submitting the technical report. The exercise may involve multiple laboratory works. Through this process students must understand the principles of technical reasoning and the experimentaldesign(3).

LevelofOpenness Amongst the many papers (1, 4) which the author managed to review stated that fully open ended laboratory activities should be introduced in the third year of the four year degree programme. However, syllabi of our engineering programme contain laboratory courses spanning throughout the four year programme. Thus it is impractical to introduce the open ended laboratory activities for all laboratorycoursesfromYear1to Year 4.Henceitis imperativethatthe conductof laboratoryactivities is carried out at different levels of openness throughout the period of study of the engineering programme.

FACULTYOFCIVILENGINEERING UNIVERSITITEKNOLOGIMARA SHAHALAM

The concept of different level of openness was discussed by many authors. In most discussions the area of concern are categorized as problem, ways and means and answers. Kilinc, A., 2005 (5) described the level of openness as shown in Table 1 below based on the one proposed by HegartyHazel (1986). The waysandmeansaresplitintotwodifferentelementsasapparatusandproceduresrespectively. Table1:LevelofOpennessaccordingtoHegartyHazel,1986 LEVEL O 1 2a 2b 3 McComas(1997)(6)presentedthelevelofopennessasenvisagedbySchwabHerronasinTable2below. Fourlevelswereidentifiedandthreeelementstobeaddressedwerecategorized. Table2:LevelofOpennessaccordingtoSchwabHerron Schwab/HerronLevelsofLaboratoryOpenness LEVEL O 1 2 3 PetropolSerb (2011) (3) categorized the elements to be addressed in the open ended laboratory activities as the experimental setup, the experimental design and data analysis and report. Asanovic (2009,2012)(7,8)referredtotheelementsasadirectedportionandanopenendedportion. CurrentlytheFacultyadoptedthefour(4)levelsofopenness,namelyLevels03,andthreecategoriesof elementtobeincorporatedintothelaboratorymanual,namelyproblem,waysandmeansandanswers. The scientific enquiry rubric, as given by Fay, 2009, for the levels of openness are summarized and describedasinTable3belowbytheUniversityofNewSouthWales,Australia(9). 2 PROBLEM Given Given Given Open WAYS&MEANS Given Given Open Open ANSWERS Given Open Open Open PROBLEM Given Given Given Given Open APPARATUS Given Given Given Open Open PROCEDURE Given Given Open Open Open ANSWER Given Open Open Open Open COMMONNAME Verification GuidedInquiry Openguidedinquiry Openguidedinquiry OpenInquiry

FACULTYOFCIVILENGINEERING UNIVERSITITEKNOLOGIMARA SHAHALAM Table3:ScientificEnquiryRubric

Establishingthelevelofindependenceandautonomyexpectedofstudentstocarryoutan assessmenttask Levelof Enquiry 0 1 2 Description Theproblem,procedureandmethodsforachievingsolutionsareprovidedtothestudent. Thestudentperformstheexperimentandverifiestheresultswiththemanual The problem and procedure are provided to the student. The student interprets the data inordertoproposeviablesolutions The problem is provided to the student. The student develops a procedure for investigating the problem, decides what data to gather, and interprets the data in order toproposeviablesolutions A raw phenomenon is provided to the student. The student chooses the problem to explore,developsaprocedureforinvestigatingtheproblem,decideswhatdatatogather, andinterpretsthedatainordertoproposeviablesolutions

ImplementationofLaboratoryActivities Implementation of the laboratory activities at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, UiTM, Shah Alam was progressively introduced, monitored, reviewed and streamlined since the last accreditation exercise by EAC in 2008. New guidelines were introduced to facilitate the teaching and learning activities to benefit not only the students but new lecturers taking the courses. Manual preparation for each laboratory activities would include the elements as shown in Table 4. The preamble to the laboratory manual should include introduction, objectives and learning outcomes. The lecturers may also include basic theoreticalinformationasandwhennecessary. Table4:ElementsinaLaboratoryManual LEVEL PREAMBLE O 1 2 3 AssessmentoftheLaboratoryCourses/Theory+LaboratoryCourses Currently there are two set of laboratory courses in the programme. One involves totally laboratory activities and the other involves theoretical knowledge through lectures plus laboratory activities. Each 3 Given Given Given Given PROBLEM Given Given Given Open WAYS& MEANS Given Given Open Open ANSWERS Given Open Open Open COMMONNAME DEGREEOF OFLABACTIVITIES OPENENDED Traditional Partiallyopen Partiallyopen Fullyopen 0% 33% 66% 100%

FACULTYOFCIVILENGINEERING UNIVERSITITEKNOLOGIMARA SHAHALAM

of these courses has different assessment criteria but implemented similar in both the Degree and DiplomaProgrammes.Typicalbreakdownofthefinalassessmentmarksaregivenbelow. i. FullyLaboratoryActivityCoursesAssessmentCriteria

ii.

CommonTest(Cognitive) PracticalTest(Psychomotor)3tests(15+15+10) TechnicalReportWriting(Affective) Theory+LaboratoryActivityCoursesAssessmentCriteria

50% 40% 10%

FinalExamination(Cognitive) PracticalTest(Psychomotor)2tests(15+15) TechnicalReportWriting(Affective)

60% 30% 10%

However,actualpercentageassessmentbreakdownmarksofrelatedcoursesaregivenintherespective syllabus. Both the practical test and technical report have their respective assessment rubrics. Students will be made aware of the assessment criteria for the respective courses. Due attention must be given basedontheassessmentcriteriaandinparticulartorespectiveweightageindicated. As for the technical report which constitutes 10% to the final assessment mark, twelve (12) elements were identified to be assessed for the laboratory activities. These elements are grouped into individual, group or technical report assessments. The groups may contribute 2%, 2% and 6% respectively to the total 10% technical report marks. However not all elements would be assessed for each of the four levelsofactivities.Table6showsthesuggestedelementstobeassessedbasedonthelevelofopenness. Students need to fully understand the assessment criteria and implementation procedures adopted by respectivecourselecturers. Table6:SuggestedElementstobeAssessedBasedontheLevelofOpenness NO 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ELEMENTSTOASSESS
INDIVIDUALINLABACTIVITIESASSESSMENT PUNCTUALITIY DISCIPLINE(DRESSCODE,SAFETYSHOES,SAFETYREGULATIONS) KNOWLEDGEONOPENENDEDLABORATORY GROUPINLABACTIVITIESASSESSMENT LEADERSHIPSKILL COMMUNICATION ORGANISATION/TEAMWORK TEST/REPORT/ASSIGNMENTASSESSMENT INTRODUCTION BASICCONCEPTS SUMMARYOFPROCEDURES/METHODS ANALYSISANDINTERPRETATIONOFDATA DISCUSSIONOFRESULT CONCLUSION

LEVELOFOPENNESS 0 1 2 3
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

x x x

x x x x

x x x x 4

FACULTYOFCIVILENGINEERING UNIVERSITITEKNOLOGIMARA SHAHALAM Conclusion

It is hope that the teaching of laboratory courses progressively from prescriptive to investigative in nature will eventually mould the students to be better engineers in the future. It should be noted that wellprepared laboratory manuals based on the different levels of openness alone could never achieve the desired objectives without due attention and proper assessment of the activities by respective courselecturers/laboratoryfacilitators. Student preparation prior to the activity and participation in the activity are of paramount importance to realize the objectives of the activities. It is also anticipated that this nature of activities would enable students to be better prepared in undertaking final year projects of investigative nature in the fourth yearofthedegreeprogramme.

References
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 AbdRahman,N.,etal.,2011.ComparativeStudybetweenOpenEndedLaboratoryandTraditionalLaboratory EngineeringAccreditationManual2012,BoardofEngineers(BEM),Malaysia PetropolSerb,G.D.,etal.,2011.OpenEndedLaboratoryMethodAppliedintheConceptionofaTestBenchto SimulateaDieselElectricTransmission Kofli,N.T.,etal,2012.OpenEndedLaboratoryAssignmentAsEnhancingGenericSkillsAmongstEngineering Students. Kilinc,A.,2005.TheOpinionsofTurkishHighSchoolPupilsonInquiryBasedLaboratoryActivities McComas,W.E,1997.Thenatureofthelaboratoryexperience:aguidefordescribing,classifyingandenhancing handsonactivities.CSTAJournal69. Asanovic,K.,Beamer,S.,2009.C152LaboratoryExercise6 Asanovic,K.,Celio,C.,2012.C152LaboratoryExercise1 UNSW,Australia.AssessmentToolkit.AssessingLaboratoryLearning

APAbdRahmanMahamood FCE,UiTM 29May2013 Version1.0

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