Improving the quality of student learning: a systems approach

The study of engineering student learning is only really beneficial when examined in real-life settings. Students have their own, sometimes reactionary ideas about what affects the quality of their learning. Learning does not take place in convenient isolation and has to be understood in terms of cognition, behaviour, affect and context. Engineering undergraduate education must be seen as fitting into the general system known as `Higher Education´, where teaching and learning are inextricably linked. Students may be initiated into the type of learning required of them, but this can be negated by unsupportive teaching elsewhere in the curriculum. In an attempt to describe at least the factors internal to the individual, the authors suggest some of the contextual dimensions affecting how students operate in an engineering learning environment