Abstract:

The implantation of the so-called “Bologna process” on the Spanish University has required a greater 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 because of deviations during the implementation of the guidelines. At the same time, in order to complete successfully this process, proper planning and coordination is essential both at a horizontal level, among lecturers and professors of the same subject, and at a vertical level, among the lecturers and professors at the same department.

In this context, in this paper we introduce a methodology that is used for monitoring and evaluating the correct coordination and execution of the teaching guidelines and the proper development of the syllabus.

As the scope of this topic of research might seem very ambitious, we have concentrated on specific degrees. The engineering degrees are considered most of the times the most difficult ones by students. In an effort to organize the contents that should be included in each course of these degrees, universities are delivering their teaching plans for each of them. Sometimes, some courses share contents, so students are taught twice the same, and at times they need to have some knowledge background that it is given for granted or taught later on the semester or even in another year as part of the content of another course.

In this paper, and in order to be even more specific, we concentrate on the degrees of Computer Science and Telecommunications engineering (note that in Spain these two degrees are considered Engineering) at the University of Malaga (Spain). For these two degrees, we have analyzed first year courses and have identified those contents that are redundant or taught later in the degree, but still, students need to have that knowledge earlier in another course.

In order to perform this analysis, we have reviewed the contents of the syllabus of all the subjects of the degrees under study and have identified a preliminary list of duplicities. In order to validate the results, we have taken into account the perception of the students and have identified missing concepts from the point of view of the authors. We have elaborated and distributed an anonymous questionnaire among students. The questions are related to their experience on overlapping concepts or absent ones. Then, we have compared the results obtained by both means and have proposed a set of possible countermeasures that help the coordinators of the degrees to overcome the problems on coordination.

After the analysis of the questionnaires, 4 courses have been identified with problems related to previous knowledge: Programming (36%), Calculus (29%), Electronic (21%) and Numeric Methods (14%). Programming and Electronics are not core subjects in secondary schools, thus limited background for some students can be expected. However, the foundation knowledge required for Calculus and Numeric Methods should be general as these courses are central to the curricula for students targeting Engineering. The weaknesses identified are used in order to elaborate the content of the pre-entry University courses.

One of the main conclusions of the study carried out is that the courses related to Mathematics should be reorganized more efficiently.

Keywords:

Coordination, engineering, undergraduate.