A philosophy driven curriculum: The example of an engineering science course in england

During the last thirty or more years a number of articles about engineering education have suggested that one of the reasons why the goals of engineering have not been achieved is the lack of a proper philosophical base to provide the guidelines needed. At the same time a number of those involved in engineering course design have found it necessary to use the term philosophy when talking about the rationale for their courses. Inspection of such descriptions suggests they are describing a “naïve” philosophy rather than a curriculum that has an an “operational” (working) philosophy that drives curriculum design, implementation and evaluation. This paper describes a course in engineering science at `A' level for university entry in England and Wales that was epistemologically driven, and examines the extent to which it achieved its goals. The discussion is is prefaced by a short description of the system of selection to universities in England at the time of the development. At that time students seeking admission to university engineering departments were expected to have performed well in examinations that corresponded to first and or second year university courses in other parts of the world in physics, and pure and applied mathematics taken as separate subjects. It was proposed that physics should be replaced by engineering science. A major reason for this was the well documented attraction that students had for physics as opposed to engineering. It was argued by the product champion that more students would be attracted to engineering if they understood that it was a different way of thinking to physics. Thus the examination had to be equivalent to physics yet encourage a different way of thinking. It was found that in order to achieve this goal, different approaches to examining and assessment had to be introduced. It was also found that for curriculum goals to be achieved assessment had to become an integral part of the teaching-learning process rather than an afterthought. The paper describes the introduction of this examination as an alternative to physics and considers what it achieved, and why over a twenty year period it eventually failed.