Engaging electrical engineering students in oral discussions through Six Thinking Hats in Problem Based Learning

Poor communication skills of electrical engineering students have hampered them from advancing in their career. Although constant implementation of various approaches are made to enhance students' oral competency in English, these conventional teaching methods merely ‘throws’ a problem for students to discuss. As a result, students participate in speaking programmes just to perform well in exams. In this study, efforts are made to look at the significance of incorporating Six Thinking Hats (STH) in Problem Based Learning (PBL) as the means of getting students to talk on matters that they feel strongly about. Through PBL, students are urged to explore and talk on a shared problem prevalent in their own study environment. STH is used to encourage engineering students to discuss from various perspectives. The aims of this research are to determine how STH through PBL i) assists students in developing better speaking skills and ii) improves students' participation performance in inter-group discussions. The subjects involved 79 electrical engineering undergraduates. The t-test findings from the survey favoured the use of STH approach. Students perceived this learning process to be interesting and engaging. They felt more ‘involved’ to speak on their own problem from different perspectives.