Improving students’ competences in engineering drawing in the department of civil and building engineering

Abstract

The study is about improving students’ competences in engineering drawing in the department of Civil and Building Engineering at Kyambogo University. The study was guided by the following research objectives; to explore possible strategies that can be used to improve students’ competences in Engineering Drawing (ED) at the Department of Civil and Building Engineering (DCBE), to implement the identified strategies for improving students’ competences in ED at DCBE and to evaluate the impact of the intervention strategies for improving the students’ competences in ED at DCBE. To realise these objectives a descriptive research design based on a participatory approach was employed. The respondents were selected using purposive sampling techniques and the methods of data collection included; interviews, observation and focus group discussions among others. The findings unveiled a number of factors that could have led to observed low competence levels in Engineering drawing, Inadequate practice to perfect the relevant skills in ED, lack of orientation to the relevance of the topic taught, Lack of prior knowledge of the course unit of ED, Non-compliance with examination instructions, inadequate utilization of rubrics and lack of drawing equipment. Intervention strategies to solve the causes were suggested, implemented and evaluated, they included; Weekly hands on group task done, lecturers providing more hands-on tests, exposing students to different question approaches and Sharing and improving of rubrics used in assessing students work by lecturers and then with students. The results revealed that Inadequate competences are still a wide spread pitfall that contribute to poor performance in ED, it was strongly recommended that students should be drawing equipment to fully own practice and also have also be regularly assessment in ED so that inadequacies in students’ competences can be easily identified and promptly rectified