Continuous Improvement and Optimization of Curriculum System for Engineering Education Accreditation: A Questionnaire Survey on Achievement Degrees of Graduation Requirements

Abstract

Engineering education accreditation represents the current trend in undergraduate reformation. Curriculum system improvement is an important way to realize the “innovation leading” of engineering education accreditation. However, there is little information detailing the improvement and optimization of the curriculum system for engineering education accreditation, and a method was tentatively developed based on evaluated achievement degrees of graduation requirements through a questionnaire survey in this work. The results show that a curriculum system guided by engineering education accreditation greatly improves graduation requirement achievement and students’ overall qualities. The graduation requirement achievement degree is largely influenced by the curriculum system and extracurricular science and technology activities, while it is not significantly correlated with students’ scores. Some measures are provided to optimize and improve the curriculum system, including adding additional curricula, converting the supporting index of the curriculum, strengthening the supporting degree of the curriculum, and guiding extracurricular scientific activity. Such measures are significant for increasing achievement degrees, reasonably balancing teaching resources and developing students’ comprehensive abilities. Moreover, the students’ scores cannot objectively reflect the graduation requirement achievement degree, and there exist some limitations to evaluating graduation requirement achievement degrees using course scores. Additionally, post-graduate environment factors, such as major-related work, technical work and further education, also affect graduation requirement achievement degrees.