Managing student diversity in the Master of Engineering Practice program

Abstract

[Abstract]: The Master of Engineering Practice is a distance education program that is accredited by Engineers Australia and is specifically designed to enable experienced Engineering Technologists to become Professional Engineers. This innovative program enables students to use their workplace learning to demonstrate their achievement of the objectives in up to half of the courses in the program. More than 120 students have been admitted to the program since it was first offered in Semester 2, 2004, and six have graduated. There is great diversity in the educational and work experiences that students bring to the program. For example, the educational experiences vary from a 1976 Certificate in Civil Engineering through to a PhD, and the length of work experience varies from 5 years to more than 30 years. For this reason, the first course in the program requires students to reflect on and assess their prior learning and then prepare and negotiate a Pathway to Graduation Plan that is tailored to meet their specific learning needs. The paper begins with a discussion about the reasons the program was introduced and the learning and teaching contexts at USQ. This is followed by a description of the characteristics of the students in the program, which highlights the diversity within the cohort. The next section outlines the structure of the program and the flexible teaching and assessment approaches used to manage student diversity and to facilitate student learning. Finally, it draws on the results of a 2007 student survey to demonstrate the effectiveness of the program in enabling students to achieve their career goals.