A Course Improvement Strategy That Works: The Improvement of Student Satisfaction Scores in a Lecture and Laboratory Course Using a Structured Course Modification Methodology

Courses that have been stable for a long time may, after analysis, be found to struggle to meet current assessment and certification requirements. Over time these courses become not only misaligned, but also need to be refreshed with innovations in industry and teaching techniques. As the course struggles, students may become complacent and disenfranchised as well. This paper examines the potential for this effect in an engineering technology program. This specific course is focused on the accessory systems for aircraft engines such as: carburetors, fuel injection systems, magnetos, and propellers. The course consists of lecture and laboratory sections where the lab section of the course uses actual aircraft components as lab equipment for student use. For clarification, these are functional aircraft components manufactured by aircraft equipment suppliers. However, they are non-airworthy and are not for future installation on airworthy aircraft. This study evaluates the perceptions of students’ experiences in the course using course evaluation surveys before and after three primary changes made to the course: 1) improving the underlying structure and alignment in the course sections through the focus on Federal curriculum requirements for powerplant certification, and ABET-ETAC outcomes, 2) increasing productive and clear applicability to course outcomes in student time on equipment in the laboratory, and 3) increase student feedback opportunities. Implementation of the changes to the course have been made by following a structured methodology. There has been an improvement in the students’ perceptions of the course. After incorporation of the course modifications that have been identified by following the methodology, student satisfaction evaluation scores doubled.