An analysis of Ph.D. examiners’ reports in engineering

In recent years, there have been increasing calls for an overall transformation of the nature of engineering Ph.D. programs and the way theses are assessed. There exists a need to understand the examination process to ensure the best quality outcome for candidates in engineering. The work we present in this paper uses data collected between 2003 and 2010 for a total of 1220 Australian Ph.D. theses by analysing examiner reports. Our analysis indicates that Ph.D. theses in engineering, N?=?106, differ considerably from those in other fields in areas such as gender of candidates and examiners and the examiners’ geographical location. We also found that assessment areas such as significance and contribution of the thesis, publications arising from the thesis, breadth, depth and recency of the literature review and communication and editorial correctness are areas in which the proportion of text of engineering examiners' comments differs significantly from other fields.     

University Students' Writing: Types of Errors and Some Comparisons Across Disciplines

The purpose of this study was to identify the writing errors made by 310 first year university students in 13 disciplines using a checklist of five writing error categories, each with a number of sub‐categories. The overall median error rate was 3S.0 errors per 1000 words. Punctuation and capitalisation was by far the most common category of error, and sentence structure, word usage, spelling and vocabulary followed in descending order of frequency. Law and Economics students exhibited the highest error rates while Geography, Mechanical Engineering, Philosophy, English, Statistics, Linguistics, Geology, History and Sociology students had error rates near the median value, and French and Psychology students made fewest errors. The major error sub‐categories that best indicated difference between good and poor writers were the use of commas and some aspects of sentence construction.     

Making the Decision to Provide Enhanced Podcasts to Post-Secondary Science Students

Providing students with supplementary course materials such as audio podcasts, enhanced podcasts, video podcasts and other forms of lecture-capture video files after a lecture is now a common occurrence in many post-secondary courses. We used an online questionnaire to ask students how helpful enhanced podcasts were for a variety of course activities and how important having access to the enhanced podcasts was in their decision to miss classes. Student responses from two courses, one introductory and one advanced, were compared. Students in the introductory Genetics course reported that having access to enhanced podcasts was “very important” in their decision to miss class more often (39%) than those in the advanced Microbiology course (20%). They also reported missing more classes than students in the advanced course. Students in both courses found the enhanced podcasts helpful for a range of learning activities. First year students who missed just a few classes and those who missed many classes both found the enhanced podcasts to be very helpful for learning activities. We argue that creating these resources is a good choice for instructors irrespective of the level of the course they teach and that the potential value of these resources, particularly for first year students, outweighs any impact that having access to supplementary enhanced podcasts of the lectures may have on class attendance.     

Examining PhD and research masters theses

The examination of research theses has only relatively recently attracted research interest that has focused on what examiners do and how consistent they are. The research questions in this study address firstly whether PhD and research masters theses were treated by examiners as qualitatively different on 12 indicators of importance across the areas: contribution of the thesis, the literature review, approach and methodology, analyses and results and presentation. Secondly what was the examiner assessment of quality of a recently examined thesis on the same indicators and, finally, how well the indicators were reflected in a holistic assessment of thesis quality. The work reported here draws on the responses of 353 PhD and 74 research masters thesis examiners. Findings showed the examiners generally rated the relative importance of the indicators very similarly at both degree levels. Further the order of importance across indicators was essentially the same for the two levels of thesis. Anticipated differences did emerge with the examiners giving higher quality gradings for all contribution indicators for PhD as compared with research masters theses. The 12 specific quality indicators, individually and collectively were strongly related to the holistic assessment of thesis quality, particularly at the PhD level.     

ENGINEERING IN CHILDREN’S FICTION - NOT A GOOD STORY?

Responding to concerns that engineering is a poorly understood occupation and that young people are exposed to stereotyped images of scientists and engineers at an early age, this investigation sought to identify how science and engineering is portrayed in contemporary junior fiction (ages 8–12) and to what extent. An examination of 4,800 junior fiction titles in one region in New South Wales, Australia, identified as few as 71 titles that addressed themes related to engineering and the sciences. While the crazy, nerdy, scientific stereotype exists in these stories, mostly in humorous vein, we found that fictional characters were split between the nerdy, eccentric, and the more serious and professional types who were depicted as more popular. The emphasis was on male characters, but not exclusively so. There were limited details that could be associated with engineering. Where building, making, and working with machines featured, they were depicted as male activity and primarily connected to vehicles, mostly cars. We concluded that while young people, particularly girls, were unlikely to gain accurate or compelling images about engineering as an occupation from this source at present, as a medium for informing the young and their parents, the potential of fiction was considerable.     

Assessment of the English Skills of Tertiary Students

Despite increasing concern about student writing at the tertiary level there has been little empirical research into the nature and extent of the problem in Australia. The writing skills of three samples of university students in different courses were assessed using the multiple choice English Skills Assessment (ESA) test, and two other measures developed by the researchers: a detailed error checklist and wholistic ratings. The error checklist was intended to supplement as well as complement the skills areas covered by the ESA. On average, students responded correctly to 86 per cent of the ESA test items and made a total of 21 errors per 1000 words when writing narrative. The checklist enabled the detection of important deficiencies in writing not identified by the ESA, particularly in some areas of punctuation and sentence structure. Some different emphases are indicated for the testing of writing skills at the university level.