**3. Characteristics and functions of the course**

In this section, we will describe the programme integrating course through its characteristic features and its functions in the education [22, 25].

## **3.1 Characteristics of PIC**

The first function of the programme integrating course, as we will see in the next subsection, is academic introduction. Andersson et al. [26] have identified five key concepts that characterise successful activities for academic integration and improved student completion. We will show that the programme integrating course is characterised by all these key concepts, by going through the five concepts and explaining how PIC2 is characterised by them.

#### *3.1.1 An overall perspective*

PIC runs for the whole first 3 years of the education and is mandatory for all students. All categories of staff who are directly involved in the programme are involved in PIC: the programme director, the study counsellor and 13 instructors who are teaching courses in the programme.

Furthermore, PIC ties together the mandatory courses of the programme and guides the students in their choices of elective courses and specialisations. It covers most aspects of the studies: objectives, execution and development of the courses, study skills and personal health, profession and lifelong learning.

#### *3.1.2 Student activity*

Four times each year, the students meet in small cross-grade groups. Each student has the same group and the same mentor each time. Before each seminar each student should write a reflection document, read the reflections of the other members of the same group and comment on them. During the seminar, the written reflections are discussed, usually first in small groups and then in the whole group. PIC is permeated by student activity.

#### *3.1.3 Personal meetings*

The seminar groups consist of about a dozen students from different years (1–3). In the yearly evaluation, many students emphasise that the meetings with students in other years are especially fruitful. Since the students meet the same instructor as mentor during all 3 years, a mutual trust is developed. At the end of the third year, the mentor meets each student individually for 15 minutes and discusses the important choice of master programme and specialisation. The students also meet the study counsellor once or twice a year within the course.

#### *3.1.4 Forward-pointing*

Our aim is that the course participants should become skilled and conscious selfregulating students, aware of the objectives of their education programme, why the courses in the programme are included in the education and how they build on each

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*Programme Integrating Courses Making Engineering Students Reflect*

other. Furthermore, the students should be able to make informed choices to get the vocational training and education that they seek. The discussions about current courses, in the second half of each seminar, show younger students what they will

*A graph showing how the mandatory courses of the programme are linked to each other. This picture is shown* 

The very first lecture in the first year of the programme is a PIC lecture, where we show the students how the mandatory courses of the programme are linked (see **Figure 2**), how the programme is run and developed, which course administrative systems exist and where to find answers to questions and get help—knowledge that will simplify life as a student. The textbook used gives further insight into the

Each PIC seminar has a topic that raises the consciousness about some academic discourse, which makes the students aware of many discourses spread out over the 3 years that the course is given. The topics are shown in **Table 4**, in order of popularity according to a survey answered by all third-year students 2019. The topics

We have shown that PIC meets all five key concepts. Hence, it is likely that PIC is

The programme integrating course is a multipurpose course. Kann [25] argues

a successful activity for academic integration and improved student completion.

1.Academic introduction (strengthening L ← P and L ← T relations)

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88253*

meet in their education in 1 or 2 years.

*and discussed at all lectures of PIC2, i.e. twice a year.*

*3.1.5 Discourse awareness*

**Figure 2.**

academic discourse.

rotate in a 3-year cycle.

**3.2 Functions of PIC**

that PIC fulfils the following 10 functions:

*Programme Integrating Courses Making Engineering Students Reflect DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88253*

**Figure 2.**

*Theorizing STEM Education in the 21st Century*

**3.1 Characteristics of PIC**

*3.1.1 An overall perspective*

*3.1.2 Student activity*

*3.1.3 Personal meetings*

*3.1.4 Forward-pointing*

ferent ways and using different grading scales (see **Table 3**).

characteristic features and its functions in the education [22, 25].

study skills and personal health, profession and lifelong learning.

the study counsellor once or twice a year within the course.

**3. Characteristics and functions of the course**

explaining how PIC2 is characterised by them.

who are teaching courses in the programme.

PIC is permeated by student activity.

In different PICs the students' reflections and participation are assessed in dif-

In this section, we will describe the programme integrating course through its

The first function of the programme integrating course, as we will see in the next subsection, is academic introduction. Andersson et al. [26] have identified five key concepts that characterise successful activities for academic integration and improved student completion. We will show that the programme integrating course is characterised by all these key concepts, by going through the five concepts and

PIC runs for the whole first 3 years of the education and is mandatory for all students. All categories of staff who are directly involved in the programme are involved in PIC: the programme director, the study counsellor and 13 instructors

Furthermore, PIC ties together the mandatory courses of the programme and guides the students in their choices of elective courses and specialisations. It covers most aspects of the studies: objectives, execution and development of the courses,

Four times each year, the students meet in small cross-grade groups. Each student has the same group and the same mentor each time. Before each seminar each student should write a reflection document, read the reflections of the other members of the same group and comment on them. During the seminar, the written reflections are discussed, usually first in small groups and then in the whole group.

The seminar groups consist of about a dozen students from different years (1–3). In the yearly evaluation, many students emphasise that the meetings with students in other years are especially fruitful. Since the students meet the same instructor as mentor during all 3 years, a mutual trust is developed. At the end of the third year, the mentor meets each student individually for 15 minutes and discusses the important choice of master programme and specialisation. The students also meet

Our aim is that the course participants should become skilled and conscious selfregulating students, aware of the objectives of their education programme, why the courses in the programme are included in the education and how they build on each

**206**

*A graph showing how the mandatory courses of the programme are linked to each other. This picture is shown and discussed at all lectures of PIC2, i.e. twice a year.*

other. Furthermore, the students should be able to make informed choices to get the vocational training and education that they seek. The discussions about current courses, in the second half of each seminar, show younger students what they will meet in their education in 1 or 2 years.

### *3.1.5 Discourse awareness*

The very first lecture in the first year of the programme is a PIC lecture, where we show the students how the mandatory courses of the programme are linked (see **Figure 2**), how the programme is run and developed, which course administrative systems exist and where to find answers to questions and get help—knowledge that will simplify life as a student. The textbook used gives further insight into the academic discourse.

Each PIC seminar has a topic that raises the consciousness about some academic discourse, which makes the students aware of many discourses spread out over the 3 years that the course is given. The topics are shown in **Table 4**, in order of popularity according to a survey answered by all third-year students 2019. The topics rotate in a 3-year cycle.

We have shown that PIC meets all five key concepts. Hence, it is likely that PIC is a successful activity for academic integration and improved student completion.

## **3.2 Functions of PIC**

The programme integrating course is a multipurpose course. Kann [25] argues that PIC fulfils the following 10 functions:

1.Academic introduction (strengthening L ← P and L ← T relations)


**Table 4.**

*Results of the evaluation question: 'Which three seminar topics do you think were most fruitful?'*


6.Information about elective courses and studies abroad (L ← P relation)


The motivation of function 1–7 should be clear from the above characterisation. Let us motivate the last three functions.

There may be important but small subjects that are parts of the overall objectives of the programme but are not included in any ordinary course. This was the case for us for ethics, plagiarism, computer science history and the computer in the societal development. Therefore, we extended PIC with an ethics module and a computer history model and added plagiarism as a seminar topic. This is an example of the eighth function of PIC.

Function 9 concerns the education of the instructors who are acting as mentors, which is of two kinds: First, PIC gives knowledge about the programme, its objectives, contents and courses to the students, but the mentors need to read the preparation material before each seminar, so they will get the same knowledge. Second, the mentors will learn, by reading reflections and listening to the discussions at the seminars, how the students experience their studies and how they study and prioritise. The mentors can then use this knowledge to improve their own courses and make them more suited to the programme.

Regarding function 10, there are several common problems with ordinary course evaluations that PIC solves. Many course surveys have low participation, but in PIC the surveys are mandatory. This is possible because the fourth intended learning outcome of the course is 'review critically and reflect on both the setup and

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*Programme Integrating Courses Making Engineering Students Reflect*

after the seminars. This allows for acting on the feedback swiftly.

section, the results of these publications will be summarised.

**4. Analysis of the effects of the programme integrating courses**

The effects of programme integrating courses have been analysed in a sequence of publications, several of them only published in Swedish [22, 25, 27–30]. In this

Six different methods for collecting data have been used in the evaluations:

available to the students, often as a basis for reflection and discussion.

PIC. The interviews have been transcribed and analysed.

of PIC. The interviews have been transcribed and analysed.

2018. Of 25 mentors, 22 did answer the survey.

• *Interviews with students*: students, 22 in total, of different PIC courses (PIC1, PIC2 and PIC3) and years have been interviewed by the doctoral student Emma Riese in 2018. The questions were mainly about the experience of

• *Interviews with mentors*: six teachers working as mentors in different PIC

courses have also been interviewed by Emma Riese, mainly about experiences

• *Survey to mentors*: a survey was sent to all mentors of PIC1, PIC2 and PIC3 in

• *Document analysis*: the PIC2 reflection documents handed in by the students 2010–2016, many thousands of documents, have been automatically analysed by a language technology-based system, in order to study the progression of

• *Number of students studying abroad*: in order to study the influence of the seminar on the topic *studying and working abroad*, we have collected the numbers of

reflective ability and the language quality (see Sections 4.4 and 5.2).

exchange students during 5 consecutive years (see Section 4.5).

• *Mandatory surveys*: at the end of each academic year, all PIC2 and PIC3 students should answer a mandatory survey. This is one of the ways that the students show fulfilment of the fourth of the intended learning outcomes in **Table 2**, as explained in Section 3.2. These surveys are used both to evaluate the course itself and the programme, but they can also be used for other purposes, as shown in Section 5. Many questions have been the same for several years, so it is possible to compare answers to the same questions from both different years of students and different years of the survey. At some seminars, we have given the students surveys of specific topics, such as study skills (see Section 4.3), procrastination or learning strategies (see Section 5.4). We always make a summary of the results

implementation of the education as well as their own study achievements' (**Table 2**). Another feature of the surveys in PIC is that questions can have a programme perspective, which is not possible or at least not that easy in a survey in a singular course. Last, but not the least, the course reflections at the end of each seminar give direct feedback on the ongoing courses, independently of which department they belong to. The mentor collects the feedback and presents it to the other mentors (including the programme director) at a short meeting over a cup of coffee the day

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88253*

**4.1 Methods of evaluation**

*Programme Integrating Courses Making Engineering Students Reflect DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88253*

implementation of the education as well as their own study achievements' (**Table 2**). Another feature of the surveys in PIC is that questions can have a programme perspective, which is not possible or at least not that easy in a survey in a singular course.

Last, but not the least, the course reflections at the end of each seminar give direct feedback on the ongoing courses, independently of which department they belong to. The mentor collects the feedback and presents it to the other mentors (including the programme director) at a short meeting over a cup of coffee the day after the seminars. This allows for acting on the feedback swiftly.
