Teaching Engineering to South-east Asian Students

The pass rate in some electrical and electronic engineering courses at USQ fell dramatically when large numbers of students from South East Asia enrolled in 2001 and subsequent years. As the majority of these students enter their program with advanced standing a number of transitional factors may contribute to this phenomena. However, the main factor was poor performance in examinations because of the apparent inability of students to answer questions in a way which demonstrated understanding of the course content. Since that time a number of measures have been implemented, firstly to try to understand the reasons for this outcome, and then to improve the results. Staff are attempting to move beyond the simple theory of student deficiency being the cause, and are experimenting with ways to improve their teaching. This paper identifies and discusses the issues and then points towards some solutions.