This study explores innovative teaching methods, including the start-stop-continue technique and online engagement, to enhance the learning experience of materials engineering students. The authors found that traditional teaching methods were ineffective, and leveraging action research empowered students to improve their performance and participation. The findings suggest that adapting teaching strategies to meet student needs can lead to increased motivation and better outcomes in engineering education.

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Using Action Research and Conversations on Practice to Improve Engineering Teaching
ABSTRACT
Many engineering subjects are highly mathematical, analytical and descriptive. To make students
understand the basic concepts, theory, analysis, design and application, new teaching-learning systems
need to be explored. One of these is the Start-Stop-Continue technique. From the present study, it is
concluded that given an ambient environment, the learning process can be made very effective and all
the course objectives can be achieved. Action research has helped in empowering the students in
acquiring knowledge. With this approach, the students’ performance has improved from mediocre to
very good.
R. K. Lalwani Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya and
W. Y. Low Medical Education and Research Development Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya
RTIHE-Chap12_155-167(168).indd 155 Researching Teaching in Higher Education 156
The clever man will tell you what he knows; he may even try to explain it to you. The wise
man encourages you to discover it for yourself, even though he knows it inside out. Revans (1980)
Introduction
In this chapter, the authors discuss research that was conducted to improve the interest, motivation,
participation and performance of the students in one of the core subjects for those majoring in material
engineering. The conventional methods of teaching such as lectures, discussion, quizzes, tutorials and
examinations were found to be ineffective. Research undertaken here has helped the students to
become more active and critical thinkers. Kalkani, Boussiakou, and Boussiakou (2004) posit that the way
students learn depend on their thinking pattern and how they use their strength to overcome their
weaknesses. They concluded that the performance of students evaluated at the end of the semester
proved to be better compared with performances from previous years. The success of these students
was attributed to the fact that students utilised their strengths and addressed their weaknesses, while
the instructor created opportunities and eliminated negative attitudes from students during the
Semester. During the semester, the students were empowered to express their views just by raising
different coloured cards, which were provided to them and the following observations were recorded:
1. The observation of students’ learning styles.
2. The understanding of students’ strengths, weaknesses and affinities.
3. The listening of the students’ problems.
4. The building up of their strengths.

2. 5. The elimination of students’ shyness, negative attitudes and weaknesses.
Research Questions
The following research questions guided the study: (a) how can the lectures match the diverse needs of
the mechanical students? (b) in what ways will their learning styles help in redesigning the way lectures
are delivered? and (c) how will instant messenger (IM) for questions about the subject affect the
students’ performance and understanding?
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Using Action Research and Conversations on Practice to Improve Engineering Teaching 157
Context of the Study
This study was carried out in a premier university located in the capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.
In 2010, there were about 2000 undergraduate students registered at the Faculty of Engineering which
consists of seven departments. By ethnicity, about 57% were Chinese, 40% were Malays and 3%
categorised as others.
Participants
The participants in this study were 28 materials engineering students (16 males and 12 females; 16
Chinese, 11 Malays and one foreign student) who enrolled in the Course on Non-Ferrous Alloys which is
a core subject at the Department of Mechanical Engineering for Materials Engineering, Faculty of
Engineering. This course is only offered for the second year materials engineering students, and thus all
students were second year students except for one final year student who was a repeat student. This
course is a prerequisite for the Course on Aerospace Materials which is offered in the final year.
Methodology: About the Course and the Lecturer
At the end of the 14-week course on Non-Ferrous Alloys, students must have an understanding of
aluminum, copper, nickel, gold, silver and other non-ferrous alloy systems and alloy designations, have a
working knowledge of heat treatment and coating of aluminum, and have an understanding of the
guidelines for alloy selection. The course is normally taught based on lectures, project and presentation
followed by a written examination. Via the action research approach, various modalities of teaching
were incorporated in the course, such as, the Start-Stop-Continue (SSC) technique, Instant Messaging,
Moodle and treasure hunt exercise. In the SSC technique, which was applied to foster active and
collaborative learning, students were divided into small groups of four students. The students were left
on their own to form these groups. Each group was given three coloured cards to use during the delivery
of the lecture in the class. A green card to indicate start, a red card, stop and a yellow card to continue
were made available to each student of each group. These coloured cards were used at the end of each
lecture. This technique was highly appreciated by the students specially those who were shy of asking
questions in the class, as it

3. RTIHE-Chap12_155-167(168).indd 157 Researching Teaching in Higher Education 158
helped them to express their likes and dislikes of the lectures conducted. The data was collected within
a 12-week duration of six cycles of three different activities sub-divided further in two sub-activities,
which made all the students very active and collaborative learners. The three main activities were:
1. Classroom activities — consisting of lectures, multimedia presentations and conversations
2. Online activities — consisting of Moodle, e-forum, and e-resources
3. Group initiatives — consisting of group discussions, active learning, and collaborative learning
As for the treasure hunt exercise, which was carried out during the last week of the course, the seven
groups of students went around the university campus and looked for five non-ferrous alloys and
discussed their applications. Via the Moodle modality of teaching, questions were posed on the use of
action research for teaching in which all students were required to answer. These questions were
posted three times at the end of each month for the whole duration of the course. The questions were
as follows:
1. What can you say about the multiple modalities used in facilitating your understanding and learning
of the topics discussed? How do you assess your learning via these modalities?
2. What do you think the lecturer should CONTINUE doing to further enhance your learning?
3. What do you think the lecturer should STOP doing to further facilitate your learning?
4. What do you think the lecturer should START doing in order to further facilitate your learning?
5. What do you think the class participants should START doing in order to further facilitate your
learning?
6. What do you think the class participants should CONTINUE doing to further enhance your learning?
7. What do you think the lecturer should STOP doing so that your learning is not hampered?
8. What do you think the class participants should do to bring about a “learning and sharing paradigm”
into action?
9. In your opinion, how can the lecturer and class participants work together to achieve course
outcomes in an active and collaborative (learning and sharing) paradigm?
This course was taught by a lecturer of mechanical engineering (RKL) who has 35 years of teaching
experience in mechanical engineering and has taught in four
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Engineering Teaching
159

4. continents in the world. With an interest in action research, both of us joined forces to conduct this
study. All the lectures were taught by RKL and both of us met up once a month and discussed the
encounters in the class. More deliberations were also done during the two fully dedicated workshops on
action research, and this was where ideas were exchanged and challenges addressed.
Data Analysis
Once all the data were collected, analyses were done by doing a frequency check of the SSC coloured
cards over the time period and examining the patterns, such as students’ attendance, punctuality and
further discussion on the topics outside lecture time. In order to validate the interpretation of the data,
member checks and triangulation were carried out by the researchers. Both the researchers deliberated
on the research process and reviewed the data collected from the various sources and reliability of the
data was determined. We had discussions on ways to implement and strengthen the strategies of action
research in teaching. The following is an excerpt from one of our conversations.
WYL: Since the topic on non-ferrous alloys is rather boring, so tell me, how do you think you could
maintain students’ attention and interest in the class? So far, how do you conduct your lectures and
how did your students evaluate you as a teacher?
RKL: Well, there are many ways of doing it. I teach the normal way that every teacher does. But, I think
maybe now we can have a treasure hunt, or use all these latest IT, phones and computers like social
network, Yahoo and sms. These days all kids use this technology to communicate with one another, so
let’s make use of this for our teaching. I am sure they will like it. I hope so.
Findings
By attending the Action Research Workshop, the researchers hoped to improve on their teaching and
learning activities. Engineering courses, which are rather dry and technical, challenges students’
understanding of the subject matter, and this is where action research comes into play. What follows
are views of the researchers in improving teaching outcomes and engaging and empowering engineering
students in learning.
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My Reflections as an Educator in Engineering
In all these years as an educator in the field of engineering, I have always known that there is only one
conventional way of teaching, until I was exposed to action research at the beginning of the academic
year 2009/2010 and that was really an eye-opener for me as a teacher who has taught for so many
years. The workshop on action research served as an inspiration for me. New knowledge was gained and
I felt excited, energised and eager to become a more interesting and effective teacher in the field of
engineering. As such, the mechanical engineering lectures for the Non-Ferrous Alloys course was
designed incorporating the technique of action research. From the academic staff perspective, many of
my colleagues perceived this to be a useless effort on my part. They were skeptical about this research
technique and wary about the outcomes of such a teaching approach. Borrego (2007) has rightly said

5. that engineering academics have a tendency to rely heavily on quantitative measures and have a
distrust of the qualitative, as well as a not too surprising, unfamiliarity with the educational literature.
Furthermore, Arlett, Smith and Tolley (2007) cited views from engineering academics as “educational
research and engineering are not always comfortable bed fellows”. Canning (2004) recognised that
conducting action research may be a culture shock for academics who are teaching engineering subjects
because these academics have a tendency to depend largely on quantitative measures and have no faith
in the qualitative aspect. In 2009, Arlett et al. in their paper titled Establishing and Supporting
educational Research in Engineering from a Local and National Perspective, described an action research
approach to support improvement in the educational research skills of engineering academics in the UK.
In the local context, perhaps, it is time for engineering academics to enlighten and equip themselves
with this other form of teaching technique in order for us to impart our scientific knowledge and
empower students with active and collaborative learning. Although this action research may be a small
study, it helped me in looking at my own teaching from a different perspective. I began to query my own
teaching practice and became more grounded in my day-to-day teaching. I have reflected on and
redesigned my course to suit the needs of the students. I have learnt as much from this research and
need to reprioritise my teaching objectives and teaching styles, taking into consideration students’
needs, priorities and expectations. I have blended engineering knowledge, concepts and skills into my
teaching and this has helped improve the curriculum content of the course.
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