Exposing Students to Engineering in Society

Abstract

This paper introduces to academia a course named Engineering in Society that is run at the College of Engineering of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. The paper also reports on an assessment of the course content, mode of delivery and impacts, and recommends improvements to enhance its learning outcomes. The assessment was done through the administration of questionnaires to four hundred and thirty-seven current and immediate past students of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. The respondents were students in the second, third and fourth years of the BSc Electrical and Electronic Engineering programme as well as its immediate past alumni. The results of the assessment show that over 85% of the respondents from the various categories consider the course to be essential for their career development. Between 56.8% and 79.4% of respondents from the various groups are satisfied with the mode of delivery of the course. Not less than 69% of the respondents agree to the attainment of at least one of the learning outcomes of the course. The respondents consider the community project component of the course as the most impactful. The study has revealed an increasing trend of students contracting others to do their community projects for them. It also reveals an increasing trend in plagiarism of submitted reports. Among others, the study recommends revision of the course content, mode of delivery, and assessment, to maximize the impact of the course.