Data-driven curriculum redesign in civil engineering

Fundamental concept gaps in math, science, and physics, as well as other gaps students and faculty perceive in the curriculum, can have crucial implications for faculty teaching courses and for students progressing through a civil engineering program. Faculty noted anecdotally that students were getting midway through the curriculum and having extreme difficulty with concepts in certain courses. A data gathering process was designed to identify the perceived concept gaps as well as the intentional redundancies, and this paper presents the gathered data and explains their influence on proposed changes to the curriculum. The data collection included: faculty and student surveys regarding conceptual gaps, student helpdesk survey, student pre-requisite survey, student supplemental resource analysis, and student focus groups as senior exit interviews. Survey formats were both qualitative and quantitative. Program learning outcomes were clarified and performance criteria defined for each outcome at several developmental levels. Conclusions and implications for civil engineering curriculum redesign and curriculum design in general are discussed.