Evaluating engineering students performance in physics courses during foundation studies

Student who intends to pursue bachelor engineering program at Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) must undergo a one-year foundation program. For mechanical (ME) and electrical (EE) engineering students, Physics courses are among the main subjects that they need to take during their foundation study. Physic 1 generally focuses more on mechanical topics, while Physics 2 focuses more on electrical topics. This paper describes the study that was carried out in the engineering foundation programs at UNITEN to see the performance of two different students' groups (ME and EE) taking the same subject. The results from the past four years were analysed. It was found that, for Physics 1, there is no significant different between mechanical engineering and electrical students (t(636)=−1.044, p=.297 >0.05). Similarly for Physics 2, no significant different was also found ((596)=−1.929, p=.054 >0.05). This finding provides a new insight on and ongoing process to improve the teaching and learning approach for Physic courses.