Improving Student Engagement In Civil Engineering Studies

Abstract

Educating Generation Z poses new challenges for academic and administrative staff at universities. As the new generation of students has new ways of learning and paying attention, modern engineering education methods need to be applied. In addition, the general popularity of civil engineering is low, studies are relatively difficult and dropout rate is high. Therefore, student engagement and motivation always require special attention. This paper presents several strategies and methods applied at VILNIUS TECH Faculty of Civil Engineering during the last 5 years. Authors present and analyse how institutional policies and targeted academic support for lecturers can improve student engagement and help build faculty competencies. Paper briefly presents several best practices in engineering education from our teaching experience. Qualitative and quantitative analysis and faculty surveys are used to assess the impact of the implemented policies on student engagement.