A Study on the Performance of Active Learners and Effectiveness of Active and Blended Learning at the University of Glasgow Singapore

In this study, we identified active learners in the Mechatronics and Mechanical Design Engineering Programme at the University of Glasgow Singapore and studied their performance from 2012 to 2015. We used the course Mechanics of Materials and Structures, a level 3 course, that is both at taught at the University of Glasgow (UofG) and the University of Glasgow Singapore (UGS) to identify the active learners. In this course, the learners are encouraged to collaborate by creating questions and answer others’ questions by using the online tool PeerWise (http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/). Through the students’ participation in PeerWise, the active learners are identified and then their course exam performance and overall level 3 performance (GPA) are studied. The results of the study revealed that students with higher levels of activity, as determined from PeerWise, not only scored significantly higher marks on the exam but also obtained higher overall GPA during their Level 3 of their degree programme. In addition, we present a study on the active and blended learning approach to encourage student engagement and active learning in the course Mechanics of Solids and Structures, a level 4 course for the UGS Mechanical Design Engineering programme. The students are required to watch lecture videos and tutorials before attending the lecture. During lecture sessions, first, a short lecture is conducted at the start of the lecture session, next the students are asked to solve problems together with their classmates, and finally, the solutions are presented and discussed with the students. The results of the study showed that the learning outcome of the course improved. However, the active and blended learning can be unpopular among the students and can affect the teaching evaluation