Engineering Education: Program Ranking and Student Interest

Abstract

This article discussed about the impact of undergraduate students decision on program ranking towards their interest to study their current engineering program. The main research purposes are to investigate how students react and express their interest towards current study and to identify weather program ranking could influence students’ interest to study. Survey has been conducted among 231 students at one local public university in Malaysia. It involves four different cohorts of students that include first, second, third, and fourth year students. Descriptive and ANOVA test were used to analyse the collected data. As a result, most students were ranked their current engineering program at 1 to 4 and 5 to 8 rank. The first and fourth year students’ show a positive behaviour and interest towards their current program as compared to the second and third year students since they have high determination to be an engineer. The findings also show that some students are capable in simulating their engineering knowledge in any situation even they never chose to study their current engineering program.