Developing an industry-inspired and engaging interdisciplinary unit for undergraduate engineering students: A depiction of the operations management unit at the University of Manchester

Engineering students hardly allocate equal level of engagement to their management units, even when such units are very complex or whether the teacher is from within or outside engineering disciplines, which often reduces student engagement as well as the accomplishments of the entire cohort. Although it is well-established that the structure, format, and content of units' assessments play vital roles in how much university students interact with their units, there are compelling evidence for and against the efficacy of different assessment methods deployable by educators that teach management units. Therefore, the focus of this study is to ascertain the reason(s) for the subpar interest in management units by engineering students. Data was gathered using Fishbone diagrams (FBDs) that depicted possible root causes of the research question. In addition to data generation, the use of FBDs also enabled deeper understanding of continuous improvement and increased the response rates. Responses showed that “perception of engineering” and “nature of contents” were the most prominent root cause groups. Further observations depicted that the perception of engineering among the students is that of an entirely technical discipline, thereby making science, engineering, technology, and mathematics units the most important. Furthermore, several respondents underrated the contents of management units, due to insufficient alignment with emerging engineering concepts as well as their inadequate academic challenge. To examine the influence of the implemented changes to assessment method on students' achievements, the performance indicators of five different cohorts were compared, and the outcomes of the comparison depicted a consistent pattern of students' attainment. Furthermore, a students' scores match of >95% was observed between cohorts, which so far indicates consistency.