A preliminary study on the Learning Style of civil engineering students in Malaysia

There is a need to address the issues of curriculum structure and course innovation in order to meet the expectation of stake holders. Engineering education has to take into account the emerging trend and rising challenges demand graduate engineers to be well-prepared to provide an innovative solution which is long term and sustaining to foster and support life-long learning. The quality of human resource is among the important factors which will determine the pace and success of a country's transition towards the knowledge-based economy. This is in response to the government's call towards developing competent engineers to support the Malaysian recent human resource policy and in view of the emergence of a multi-disciplinary and multi-mode education confronting the Malaysian education practice. This creates a challenge for engineering education to promote a broad-based undergraduate program to secure easy mobility and flexibility for the graduates to adapt to these new and revolutionary technologies. Ultimately, engineering education has to reflect on the emerging trend and rising challenges which demand graduate engineers to be equipped with long-term innovative solutions and ready to embark on life-long learning. It is therefore crucial that institutions of higher learning address this issue of engineering education curriculum in order to meet the expectations of the stakeholders. This paper seeks to examine the current status of a design course embedded in an engineering curriculum for the undergraduate civil engineering course in Malaysian universities. It will give an account on the implementation of the current curriculum for a design course and how it is consistent with the government's policy. This paper will also investigate the strategies of enhancing the teaching and learning approaches of a design subject and propose several pedagogical measures in improving the existing civil engineering curriculum.