Engineering Students' Knowledge of Current Affairs

Abstract

In an effort to obtain some data as to the adequacy of social-humanistic courses in the engineering curricula, a test on current events was given to all senior engineers and a random sample of Liberal Arts seniors at The Pennsylvania State University. The average score made by the Liberal Arts seniors was 2.2 points higher than the engineers out of a possible 105. A covariance of analysis indicated that the odds were only 8 to 1 that the results were not due to pure chance. Most educational psychologists would say there was no significant difference since the odds in favor of the Liberal Arts majors were less than 1 in 20. Although the knowledge of current events is not synonymous with knowledge of the social-humanities, it appears that the current program is satisfactory.