Engineering maths curriculum - Mustoe, 1995

[torquetum]

 Mustoe, L. (1995). Industry expects – but who should determine the curriculum? European Journal of Engineering Education, 20(3), 313-323.

 

Mustoe asks “How far should an undergraduate education in engineering aim to meet the needs of industry as perceived by industry?” (p. 313). He proceeds to come at this question from multiple directions: the requirements of industry, of engineering academics, of mathematicians, of professional bodies. He finds that the views of what maths is necessary and desirable varies widely across these groups and that it is impossible to meet everyone’s demands. For example, does the engineering mathematics lecturer teach mathematical concepts in context or not? In-context problems at the first-year level are hard to find as real-world problems are messy and ill formed. In addition, the students might not yet be familiar with the engineering context and confusion rather than a sense of relevance will result. Mustoe cites a view that concepts are easier to study in the abstract without confusing contexts, however, many clamour for relevance in the maths curriculum and show how students lose interest due to no clear links between maths class and other courses.

 

Throughout Mustoe’s literature review of a wide variety of viewpoints, there is an emphasis on basic manipulative skills as well as modelling. “Five general areas of competence worth aiming for are: a ‘feel’ for the magnitudes of quantities, an ability to handle fractions without fear, an appreciation of the use of approximations, the ability to manipulate formulae confidently and the skill to cope with calculus.” (p. 320) Mustoe has little patience for long integration problems: “Other than training in patience, persistence and concentration, there is little to be gained from an exercise in integration, for example, which requires three successive substitutions and the use of a trigonometric identity for good measure.” (p. 321). There is not much mention of the role of proof in engineering mathematics courses within this paper, except for a citation of Craggs (1978): “Craggs was concerned about the level of rigour in the mathematics taught to engineers. His conclusion was that the aims for teaching were to encourage accuracy in manipulation, to state theorems with proof where it was easy and with heuristic justification where it was not, to illustrate the possible gains and losses if work was undertaken outside the domain of these theorems and to respect the additional expertise of the trained mathematician.” (p. 318).

 

Mustoe concludes that curricula should be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up with a clear view of what the role of mathematics is in the degree programme. (Note that this is a 1995 paper, so hardly current.) I loved this paper for its variety of views and broad literature review.

 

Do not treat this blog entry as a replacement for reading the paper. This blog post represents the understanding and opinions of Torquetum only and could contain errors, misunderstandings or subjective views.