Practice vis-à-vis Benefits: An Assessment of the Teaching-Learning Methods Employed in Engineering Education

The study had two key objectives. First was to explore the teaching and learning methods currently being practiced by engineering college faculty members, and, second was to review the perceptions of the engineering teachers on the teaching-learning methods that would benefit the engineering students. To achieve the objectives, a study was conducted among faculty members handling classes of engineering students of various engineering colleges affiliated to a technical university of Odisha. The sample size comprised of 109 faculty members from 23 different engineering colleges affiliated to the technical university. The responses of the participants were elicited through a questionnaire-based survey and the eight most popular teaching and learning methods were used as questionnaire items. The study outcomes communicate that the participating faculty members are not much aware of how problem-based and project-based teaching and learning approaches can benefit their students in the classrooms. Furthermore, the results also revealed that group discussion, project-based method, problem-based method, case study method, brainstorming and role playing are not very popular teaching-learning methods among faculty members. The respondents all agreed that they do not practice these methods too frequently in their classes. The chalk and talk method is the most common teaching-learning method that is widely used by the participants, followed by the audio-visual method. According to the participants these two methods of teaching and learning are most useful for engineering students.