Analysis of learning outcomes of Civil Engineering students of Kerala state using dimension reduction Techniques

Abstract

During the 90s engineering education system is transformed from output model to outcome based education system all over the world. To monitor the new education system as well as to assess the quality of engineering education various accreditation agencies like ABET, CEAB, NBA, EA, etc. were constituted at different parts of the world. Students who were graduated from accredited programs were considered competent graduates. The accreditation agencies measure the learning outcomes of engineering graduates in terms of knowledge, skill, and attitude. The knowledge domain is easy to measure and evaluated by the student's performance in exams, assignments, quizzes, etc. The psychomotor domain evaluates the body brain coordination of the student and the affective domain evaluates the attitude of students towards learning. In this paper, a survey instrument for the perception of psychomotor skills and affective skills by engineering students was presented. The validity and reliability of the survey instrument were confirmed by the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis using SPSS software. The factor loading, average variance extracted and maximum shared variance values ensured the validity of the instrument. The reliability of the instrument was established from Cronbach’s alpha value and composite reliability values. Once the questionnaire was validated the study was extended to a larger population of students and responses were presented in the paper. Keywords—affective skill; competency; factor analysis; psychomotor skill.