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Assessment of Engineering Common Sense Among Newly Enrolled Students

of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Programs

Article  in  Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences · October 2012

DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.412

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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 60 (2012) 489 – 492

UKM Teaching and Learning Congress 2011

Assessment of Engineering Common Sense among Newly Enrolled

Students of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Programs
Jaafar Saharia,b, Norhamidi Muhamada,b, Dzuraidah Abd Wahaba,b, Juridah Joharib
a
Centre for Engineering Education Research, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
b
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Abstract

Engineering common sense in this study refers to the students’ level of knowledge of elementary engineering and their
application. This characteristic is considered essential for facilitating students to be able to move on to the more involved topics
in engineering. An assessment of common sense has been carried out among newly enrolled students in Mechanical and
Manufacturing Engineering Programs by using the marks obtained from several questions in a test. The results showed that the
students who should have already mastered simple mathematical operations and hence having common sense, a significant
proportion of them failed to apply it. Based on answers to three simple questions the assessment showed two extremes of
common sense levels with an almost 50:50 distribution, one at the lowest and the other at the highest. Although the admission
grade points for this cohort of students are considered high, it appears that there is a problem with common sense for half of
them. Do these students think that once they enter tertiary level engineering studies, learning becomes so formal that there is no
room for using common sense?
© 2011Published
© 2011 PublishedbybyElsevier
Elsevier Ltd.
Ltd. Selection
Selection and/or
and/or peer peer reviewed
reviewed underunder responsibility
responsibility of theTeaching
of the UKM UKM Teaching
and and Learning
Congress 2011.
Learning Congress 2011
Keywords: engineering; common sense; newly enrolled students; assessment

1. Introduction

The learning process for engineering students at universities in Malaysia has faced rapid changes especially in the
past decade. Latest, in order to fulfill the needs of the Washington Accord, of which The Board of Engineers
Malaysia is one of the signatories, outcomes based education (OBE) has been made the underlying approach in
engineering education and the observance of its principles is a condition for the accreditation of an engineering
program (Basri et al. 2004). The purpose is to ensure the engineering graduates attain comprehensive abilities not
only limited to the technical skills but encompassing social, environmental and economic awareness. Emphasis is
put on the graduates’ abilities to embark on life long learning and understands the impact that engineering decisions
make on society, the environment and the economy. These form part of the ten general program outcomes required

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +6-03-8921-6502; fax: +6-03-8925-9659.

E-mail address: jaafar@eng.ukm.my.

1877-0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer reviewed under responsibility of the UKM Teaching and Learning Congress 2011
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.412
490 Jaafar Sahari et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 60 (2012) 489 – 492

for accreditation (EAC 2007). To enable students to achieve these and other technical outcomes, they are expected
to have initiatives to adopt learning styles that make them more independent. Learning through lectures and other
formal teaching activities enable students to gain new knowledge on advanced engineering sciences and other
general topics related to their program of study. The mastery in these knowledge are outcomes that will enable these
students, when they graduate, to make decisions and solve problems in their engineering career. In the course of
accumulating new knowledge while pursuing their program of study, some of these knowledge will have become
common sense. Indeed, the application of common sense throughout the program of study will greatly enhance the
students learning experience. This engineering common sense is the subject of this paper. According to Smith
(2008), the term common sense appears in virtually all languages and cultures and throughout all time periods. He
provided a table of the term common sense in many languages of the world. However there was no Malay or
Indonesian language term for common sense listed although there were a few in Thai and Filipino. Smith (2008),
quoting his own work (Smith, 2007) defines common sense as core nurturance within a group, culture and/or
organization or institution. Nurturance in this regard refers to appropriate decisions taken in the context of the group,
culture, organization or institution. Appropriateness of decisions is important since this is the basis of thinking and
“sense making” within the group and hence common sense applies only to the group. In the context of the newly
enrolled students of the programs of study reported in this paper, they can be considered to belong to a large group
of people who have been exposed to eleven years of schooling and one year of pre-university education. Basic
sciences and mathematics would have been nurtured to the extent of becoming common sense. These students
would be expected to have reached the common sense level, starting from the generalization that comes from the
combination of their learning experiences and important principles in human nature as noted by Redekop (2002).
Lecturers’ experience with supervising students in design courses in their final years of study have shown a
significant number of students not capable of applying engineering common sense. This was shown from the
unreasonable figures obtained for calculation of common equipment. This led to the need to carry out a study on
students’ level and application of engineering common sense. The result of this study should provide information on
the type and level of intervention that would be needed to overcome the identified weaknesses.

2. Methodology

A cohort of newly enrolled students in Mechanical Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering Students for the
2010/2011 session was given a test as one of the requirements for the assessment of one of the courses they
registered. Students had to answer a total of sixteen questions in 90 minutes. This test consisted of questions that
explore the level of students understanding or level of memorization of the topics that was taught in lectures. Some
questions required simple mathematical operation and only needed common sense to figure it out. The students
answers to these questions was analysed for this paper. Although all the questions are relatively simple, the marks
obtained for three questions which fit the definition of common sense discussed above are taken for the assessment
of the students’ demonstration of common sense. The questions are attached in the appendix. The students would be
considered as being able to apply, or having basic engineering common sense if they get a score of five and above.

3. Result and Discussion

Table 1 shows the distribution of the numbers of students and the marks from 0 to 10 which they scored for each
question of the test considered in this study.
Refer to Appendix 1 for the list of questions the students have to answer. By referring to the definitions and
explanation of common sense above, all these questions are related to a knowledge that students already gained at
school prior to entering university, at the level of matriculation program or Higher School Certificate (STPM), or
earlier at the level of the Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM). The questions asked can be considered trivial.
In question 1 for example, only Pythagoras’ theorem need to be applied although the students need to know a certain
number for the second part. The eleven students in Table 1 who got 5 marks for this question was able to answer the
first part only. They and the rest who got full marks can be considered to have the basic level of common sense and
the ability to apply it but almost half of the cohort could not demonstrate common sense. Question 2 and question 3
are gradually more difficult, but they should still be within the reach of common sense for these students. For
question 2 students who gave the perfectly correct answer got full marks and those providing answers that are
 Jaafar Sahari et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 60 (2012) 489 – 492 491

wrong, only in the placement of the decimal point for example, get some marks. It is still disappointing to see that
half of the cohort are not able to apply their common sense. For question 3, a good number of students used the
wrong formula for calculating the area of a circular cross section, hence getting no marks at all. There is a slightly
difficult formula to be applied, but this having been explained in the lectures, should have become common sense.
The results show that there seem to be constraints that the students face in applying basic knowledge, in this case
considered to be common sense. The cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of these students at the point of entry
is a minimum of 3.08 but more than two thirds of them have CGPA of 3.50 and above. It is also notable that with
students of such high quality, only five of them managed to get full marks for all the three questions. It could be
because the students think that the questions were too simple to be of university standard and hence failed to apply
the very common sense that they have or the pressure of the test made them forget common sense.

Table 1. The distribution of the numbers of students

Score/Marks 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Question 1 29 0 1 1 1 11 0 1 2 0 22

Question 2 34 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 10 0 22

Question 3 40 0 0 3 0 3 0 2 3 0 17

4. Conclusion

A simple and informal study was conducted to identify the level of engineering common sense for new students
and the results obtained revealed that a good number of students have difficulty to apply common sense knowledge
which should have been obtained at school prior to enrolling into a tertiary level engineering programme. A more
structured study will need to be carried out in order to identify the reasons for this peculiar behaviour. When the
answers have been obtained, only then the appropriate intervention can be taken.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank UKM for providing the research grant (UKM-PTS-002-2010).

References

Basri H., Che Man A.B., Wan Badaruzzaman W.H. & Mor M.J.M. (2004). Malaysia and the Washington Accord: What it takes for full
membership. International Journal of Engineering and Technology, 1(1), 64-73.
Engineering Accreditation Council. (2007). Engineering programme accreditation manual. Board of Engineers Malaysia.
Redekop, B.W. (2002). Thomas Reid and the problem of induction: from common experience to common sense. Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science, 33, 35-57.
Smith R. Wm. (2007). A transpersonal approach to helping unknowingly needy and worried well persons: An example of In Situ diagnoses and
follow-up in the study of common sense and aberrant common sense in post-world war II Germany. Carl Jaspers Forum Target Article
T100. http://www.kjf.ca 30September 2011.
Smith R. Wm. (2008). Common sense – Its development and disorders. Paper Presented at Extraordinary Technology Conference, Alberquerque,
New Mexico, July 31-August 3.
492 Jaafar Sahari et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 60 (2012) 489 – 492

Appendix 1

Quesstion 1

The llength of the cu

ube edge for a body centred cubic
c (bcc) unit cell is a and tthe atomic radiius R. Show thhat:
4R
a. a and R is relateed in the form a (5 maarks)
3
b. th
he atomic pack
king factor is 0..68. (5 marks)
Quesstion 2

Iron hhas a BCC cry ystal structure, an atomic rad

dius of 0.124 nm
m, and an atommic weight of 55.85 g/mol. C Compute its
i g/cm3. You
theorretical density in ur calculation must
m show how w all the respecctive units of tthe variables cancel out to
get thhe final units of density. (10 marks)
m

The theoretical
t denssity is calculateed from

wheree ȡ is the theoretical deensity,

n is thee number of atooms
A is thee atomic weigh ht
Vc is th
he volume of th he unit cell
NA is thhe Avogadro’s number
(6.023x x1023 atoms/mmol)

Quesstion 3

A cyllindrical rod off diameter 10 mm

m and 50 mm m long is given n a tensile stres s in the z direcction (see Figurre 1). Given
that tthe deformation n is only elastiic and the straiin in the z direection Hz is 7.355 x 10-4 and thhe Young/s Moodulus is 97
GPa, calculate the applied force that will resu ult in the straiin mentioned aabove. (10 maarks). Every sstep in your
calcuulation is to be shown to get marks.
m
F

z do

x do = 10
mm
lo

F
Figure 1

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