Innovative Learning in Engineering Mathematics

Engineering Mathematics is a compulsory and core subject for any engineering disciplines. Students face problem in applying the engineering mathematics concepts in engineering application problems. Thus, an innovation in learning engineering mathematics is needed to satisfy the students' need and further to improve students' grades in the examination. A pre-test was designed based on the difficult and very difficult course outcome obtained from the previous preliminary tests. Sixty students from Electrical Engineering department participated in the pre-test. The students were later divided into control group and experimental group. Control group students underwent eight weeks of tutorial while the experimental group students studied the same materials in the lab using Mathematica software. The following week, both groups of students participated in a post-test. Pre-post test results were combined and run against the Rasch analysis. Pre-post test result categorized the difficulties of the questions into four groups. They are very difficult, difficult, easy and very easy. The experimental group students did well compared to their control group counterparts. This study showed a significant improvement between the control group and the experimental group. Engineering Mathematics lab should be embedded in the Engineering Mathematics curriculum to improve the learning of Engineering Mathematics.