Abstract:

Nowadays, engineers have an important role in our society and, in consequence, the careful development of their appropriate academic training process is essential. In order to ensure a high education level, the suitable coordination has to be tackled down in the definition of the different degrees, and it has to be done at horizontal, vertical and transversal levels, between lecturers and professors of the same subject; department and group, respectively.

The implementation of the so-called “Bologna process” on the Spanish University has required a great effort on the part of all the actors involved: lecturers, students, academic organization bodies, etc. After this complex process of reorganization, some issues might have gone unnoticed, perhaps because the guidelines of the courses do not detail the contents in depth or maybe due to deviations during the implementation of the guidelines.

This work is focused on the analysis of the satisfaction level of learning for the students of the degrees in Chemical Engineering (CE), Engineering of Industrial Technologies (EIT), Engineering of the Energy (EE), Engineering in Industrial Organization (EIO), Computer Science (CS) and Telecommunications Engineering (TE). A methodology has been proposed to monitor and evaluate the correct coordination of execution and how to implement the changes in the syllabus and guidelines of the above degrees. The methodology consists of different stages. During the first phase, the contents of the syllabus of all the subjects of the degrees under study were reviewed and a preliminary list of duplicities or possible problems of coordination was identified. Some coordination indicators were established in order to easily identify the subjects that require improvements in their coordination and/or previous knowledge. Then, questionnaires were distributed to the first-year students of the aforementioned degrees, together with the realization of individual interviews. In particular, the difficulties found by them are mainly related to required previous knowledge, overlapping of contents and lack of coordination among those involved in teaching the different courses.

From the results obtained with the participation of more than 100 students, some minors although relevant changes have been proposed to the coordinators of the degrees, involving temporary schedule of contents and guideline modifications. In addition, the indicators are applicable to other degrees, improving the system of coordination at different levels. All these novel measures improve the quality of university education in the area of engineering.

Keywords:

Enhancing learning, undergraduate students, coordination, previous knowledge, overlapping.