This chapter analysed the background (within accepted literature) of the assessment of engineering students’ generic skills within AL environments. The terminology of generic skills, competencies and attributes used in engineering perspectives, various active learning approaches used in the development of generic skills, the importance of generic skills in the workplace and employers’ perceptions of these skills are all discussed in this chapter. This chapter has also highlighted the generic skills assessment methods through active learning approaches and the problems faced in verifying assessments within AL. Lastly, the Constructive Alignment Theory and Consensus Theory of Employability are also presented.
69
3. Methodology
3.1 Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to describe the methodology and research design that has been applied in this study. The chapter begins by highlighting the aims, objectives and research questions to be answered in the study. This is followed by the philosophical underpinning of the thesis as well as the conceptual framework. Subsequently, the research methods and design are discussed. The methodological approach adopted involves: case study and multiple case study design. Following a description of the sampling approach, the methods that have been used and the data analysis approach are outlined. Finally, the chapter clarifies issues of validity and reliability that have been considered whilst undertaking the study. Ethical issues are also discussed before the research timeframe is presented.
The research aims to investigate generic skills assessment within an AL environment in the Malaysian Engineering Education. In order to provide a valid and reliable piece of research, an assessment framework is designed to measure generic skills. Particular attention is paid to generic skills most relevant in the field of engineering including: problem-solving, verbal communication and team working.
The research objectives, as discussed in Chapter 1, are:
1. To critique the existing methods of assessing generic skills in the context of Engineering Education within an AL environment based on the literature.
2. To collect data from two case study institutions in a range of different forms that then allows the integration of this data with the literature.
3. To develop a framework to guide the assessment of generic skills in an AL environment.
The primary research question is: How are generic skills assessed within an Active Learning (AL) environment in the Malaysian Engineering Education? In order to closely examine the relevant issues, five sub-research questions are identified which reflect the context of Engineering Education and AL environments. The research questions relating to engineering students and lecturers/mentors are: -
1. How is AL being implemented?
2. How is generic skills assessment implemented?
3. What are lecturers’/mentors’ experiences of generic skills assessment? 4. What are students’ experiences of generic skills assessment?
70
3.2 Research Philosophy
The nature of truth in social science and educational research relates to two philosophical perspectives: ontology and epistemology. Porta et al. (2008) defined ontology as about “what we study” in terms of it being the object of investigation while epistemology is about “how we know things” and “a branch of philosophy that addresses the question of the nature, sources and limits of knowledge” (p. 22). The following sections further discuss and justify why the paradigm is selected for the context of this study.
3.2.1 Interpretivism
Despite positivist stances, interpretivism acknowledges that phenomena can be interpreted differently (Burgess et al., 2006), and captures the different interpretations of a phenomenon by research subjects (Tangney, 2011). To minimise the researcher bias, Tangney (2011) suggested that ongoing reflexivity with respect to the interpretation of the data is necessary. Bryman (2012) defined interpretivism as “based upon the view that a strategy is required that respects the variances between people and objects of the natural sciences and thus requires the researcher to grasp the immanent significance of social action” (p. 30). Humans are influenced by their lived experiences, and will always make sense of the knowledge they generated as researchers and by their subjects accordingly (Lincoln et al., 2011). Interpretive approaches rely heavily on naturalistic and qualitative methods such as interviewing, observing and analysing existing texts (Angen, 2000). Angen (2000), in particular, also highlighted that these methods ensured an in-depth conversation between the researchers and the participants in order to collaboratively construct a meaningful reality.
3.2.2 Constructivism
Objectivist theories, with their links to positivism, lead to assessment policies and practices, but frequently neglect the quality of learning and teaching (Frederiksen et al., 1989; Biggs, 1996), and are more concerned with quantitative evaluation and having an analytic mind-set (Biggs et al., 2010). Nevertheless, constructivism rejects objectivism, claiming to see the human as central in the creation of knowledge (Biggs, 1996), seeing learning qualitatively, socially involved and holistically placed wherever possible (Cole, 1990; Biggs et al., 2010). Prince et al. (2006) referred to constructivism as when an individual act to “actively construct and reconstruct their own reality in an effort to make sense of their experience” (p. 4). Constructivism is represented as many things: a theory of learning, teaching, education, cognition, personal knowledge, scientific knowledge; from a world, individual, social and post- modern viewpoints (Steffe et al., 1995; Biggs, 1999b; Matthews, 2002). According to Crotty (1998), in the constructivist philosophy, the methods and methodology used are based on researcher assumptions and interpretations about reality that are dependent on his/her own
71
perspective. Baxter et al. (2008) agreed with Crotty (1998), adding that a constructivist recognises the significance of the subjective human creation of meaning, but somehow does not reject outright some notion of objectivity. In discussing constructivism, Crotty (1998) identified several assumptions as cited by Cresswell (2009):
Meanings are constructed by human beings as they engage with the world they are interpreting.
Humans engage with their world and make sense of it, based on their historical and social perspectives.
The basic substance is always social, arising in and out of interaction with the human community (p. 8).
Coll et al. (2001) adopted a constructivist point of view and contended that knowledge is simply justified rather than verified. As such, being a researcher, he/she must actively participate in, and focus on, the research process with their subjects to ensure the knowledge that is produced is reflective of their reality (Lincoln et al., 2011). The task of the researcher in this study is to understand the human’s perspectives despite the limitations of the methodology.
3.2.3 Researcher’s Ontological and Epistemological Position
The research in this thesis was designed to employ multiple case studies within an AL environment in the HE sectors of Malaysia. The researcher’s ontology of this study is grounded by his belief in the knowledge and generic skills constructed from human behaviour, underpinned by a constructivist philosophy. From an epistemological perspective, the researcher was educated and trained in Microelectronics and Communication Systems Engineering and for a decade has worked as a Mechatronics Engineering lecturer at the German-Malaysian Institute (GMI). Furthermore, the researcher’s epistemology is interpretivism, because learning is constructed from the students’, lecturers’/mentors’ and employers’ experiences and perceptions within a natural setting. According to Guba et al. (2005), there are three primal principles in particularly recognised in interpretivism: critical theory, constructivism, and participatory paradigms (p. 195).
Constructivism is chosen to acknowledge that knowledge is socially constructed since it is the dominant view in the pedagogic literature. It acknowledges that an interview is an interaction, that the conversation is mutually constructed between the researcher and the participant (Guba et al., 2005; Lincoln et al., 2011; Silverman, 2011), and that is allows discussion (Tangney, 2011). As AL is incorporated within a Student-Centred Learning environment, it is an opportunity for the researcher to tease out understandings and form knowledge of generic
72
skills and their assessment from research participants through semi-structured interviews, and later to map assessment practices through course documents.
Within this context of study, constructivism - influenced interpretivism underpins the researcher paradigm in conducting the research. As an interpretivist, the researcher principally emphasises the subjective meaning gained by interpreting the participants’ social actions and perceptions. Thus, this study focuses on AL approaches in Malaysian HE settings and, in interpreting participant actions and perceptions, towards generic skills knowledge and its assessment. There is no hypothesis generated from the literature; in fact, setting a hypothesis and carrying out a large-scale survey, for example, is seen as detrimental to the study. An exploratory approach is thus considered as the most appropriate way to meet an understanding and answering the research questions.