Abstract

The high demand by the industry for graduates capable to critically analyze the causes, content and quality of information and using them effectively to identify and solve engineering problems, has been constantly and incessantly discussed. The inability to think analytically and critically contributes to the increased percentage of unemployed graduates. Additionally, the Malaysian students resort to memorizing and rote learning to find an easy way to get a degree and then find a job. This paper investigates the level of critical and analytical thinking skills among the students in the Department of Electrical, Electronics and Systems Engineering (EESE), Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment (FEBE), UKM. This study was conducted on a group of third year students in Semester 1 2010/2011 using three instruments; the analytical component of MTest model questions by the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MOE) in the selection of prospective students for Teachers College throughout the country, Marbach-Ad and Sokolove's taxonomy (MST) for student questions on a topic discussed in the lecture and the open-ended question posed in the final examination for the microprocessor and microcontroller course. Analysis based on these three techniques provide a rough estimation on the level of analytical and critical thinking skills among students and in this study, it was learned that the critical and analytical thinking skills among these students are at a very moderate level despite their high academic achievement.

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