ABSTRACT:
Civil engineering students at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology generally find the final year research project very daunting. In most cases it is the first time that they are not ’learning’ passively by sitting in lectures, receiving notes and worked out examples, memorising the material and then writing an examination to demonstrate their ’competency’. Suddenly learning comes by doing, and they are faced with the challenge of executing a significant research project. For students who do not have good management skills, this becomes a very difficult task. To address this problem, staff have, over the past decade, integrated project management with the research project to the extent that it has now become one subject with two final year credits. This means that students learn how to use project management skills to manage the research project, which runs over one year. Project management skills integrated with a rigid structure, complemented by lecturer support in a web-based e-learning environment, has been developed to assist students in completing the research project. This has proved to be very successful and students have commented that without the newly acquired project management skills, they would not have been able to complete the projects on time. The results indicate that the integration of project management skills can relieve the role reversal entrapment problem. However, interventions to prepare the students more adequately must be considered over the first three years of study. .The paper presents the historical background to the problem, an overview of how the revised methodology is being implemented, and it indicates how e-learning is used to manage the course.
KEYWORDS:
final year research project, e-learning, project management.


INTRODUCTION
Final year engineering students at the Civil Engineering and Survey department of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) are not adequately prepared for immersion in the research project which forms a compulsory component of their course. The issue addressed in this article comprises one particular feature of educational programmes consisting of taught and research components, namely that students become trapped at the research threshold after having successfully completed the course work. From discussions with the students it becomes evident that students find the final year research project by far the most difficult programme to manage. However, considering the way undergraduate subjects are generally presented and taught, it is not difficult to see why. Traditionally, universities have mainly taught content and concentrated on optimising the efficient presentation of knowledge, thereby overwhelming the students with far more than they could possibly absorb. Thereafter, the knowledge is invariably retained only long enough to enable the successful completion of an examination (Pearce, 2005).
The perception exists that the fundamental cause is a role reversal in the taught versus research milieu. In the taught milieu it is possible for the student to remain a passive, reactive partner for almost the entire process – the syllabus, timetable and work programme are all dictated by the institution. This is reversed in the research milieu, where the student is required to take the initiative in all of the above (Slatter, 1998).


Concerted efforts have been made to improve the situation, so that more learning can take place in the first three years of study (Slatter et al.,1997; Haldenwang, 1998). However, students are generally not prepared for the daunting task of what the research project requires of them. For many it is their first introduction to research. Although they have solved engineering problems in their other undergraduate work, these problems were generally well defined and of closed form - a problem for which there is a single, definite answer. For example, they were only required to follow a sequence of steps in a design protocol to get to an answer. Now the situation demands that they have to go out and identify a researchable problem, find the relevant literature, design an experimental procedure, and build a facility if necessary. In addition, they have to perform the test work, analyse the data which may sometimes require some software development, and document the process in an acceptable manner. The analysis of the data also requires a higher level of comprehension than in earlier courses.
The literature does not seem to offer a solution to this problem. ’More-of-the-same’ – exposing students to more taught courses such as research methodology is unlikely to assist them in coping with the problem of role reversal. It is serendipitous that the very same students have studied elements of project management from their first year. The project management skills that students are exposed to are conducive to creating a manageable environment enabling them to achieve their objectives. Furthermore, this assists them in the judicious management of time and resources, as well as exposing them to risk management. Regular reports also ensure that students achieve their scheduled research milestones. Students seem to experience high levels of stress at the beginning of their 4th year when they have to commence with their research projects (Pearce, 2005). It is important that this condition be addressed to ensure that the research project becomes a positive learning experience.


When the degree courses were started, a research project was introduced at 4th year level to enhance the ’degree worthiness’ of the new course. As the curriculum did not offer a suitable subject for the research project, the latter was linked to an existing subject called Project Management. This was necessary as curriculation has been controlled at a national level and thus the introduction of new subjects was prohibited. Although the subject was named Project Management, it consisted of the research project component (70%) and the project management component (30%).
Throughput in academic offerings with a research component is a perennial problem (Slatter 1999a). The introduction of concurrent project management input to help manage the research project has greatly increased the prospective throughput of the students from about 60% in 2003 to 80% in 2005.


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