Paper Title
Inspiring and Incitements Students Techniques at the College of Engineering & Petroleum at Kuwait University
Abstract
A practical consensus among faculty members in the College of Engineering & Petroleum at Kuwait University that students are less attentive and motivated to excel the subject matters. Students often prefer less demanding faculty members in pursue of higher grades with less efforts. This study determined and analyzed one of the key problems and difficulties encountered by the engineering students towards mastering learning competencies in engineering. It was observed that most of the engineering students will seek outside help from free lancers to help them improve their grades rather that the proper channels of educational process through the faculty members and their assistants. A survey was conducted seeking a comparison on the most efficient effective method to motivate students to learn the engineering methods and their eagerness for further education. The study concluded that about 20% of students are intrinsically motivated by the engineering discipline in which they specialize in and just need a lower level of motivation from faculty members and they were fascinated by the subject matter and they were found to work independently and relying solely on the professor and his assistant. Their selection of professor regardless of his grading reputation and their choice was based on his academic skills and expertise. The remaining 80% were found that the choice of engineering was based on societal factors. These students does require extra efforts from the faculty members to motivate them and keep them attentive in the class room. Among those extrinsic factors are the welcoming approach to faculty members’ office hours, faculty/students joint field trips, listening to the students and pinpointing their difficulties, students engagements in the classroom using interesting contemporary issues examples and setting realistic performance goals from students by realizing their different abilities due to diverse experience and backgrounds. It was also found that praise played a major factor in motivating students. Negative criticism, on the other hand, must be avoided in all circumstances due to the sensitivity of our students in our society. Interestingly, some faculty members do encourage students to use the world wide web. This was found out to be useful in the motivating and covering the subject matter. For example, online lectures,YouTubevideos, observe practical experiments and workshopsand expose them to contemporary engineering issues.