ALI RIZWAN 04-UET-ME-PhD-08 - Higher Education Commission

197 Pages·2011·2.32 MB·English

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A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
In Mechanical Engineering (specialization in Engineering Management)

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A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical Engineering
By:
AALLII RRIIZZWWAANN
0044--UUEETT--MMEE--PPhhDD--0088
CCHHEECCKKEEDD AANNDD RREECCOOMMMMEENNDDEEDD BBYY::
The Research Committee*:
* Signatures in file
Prof. Dr. Arshad Hussain Qureshi
Member Research Committee

Dr. Mahmood Anwar Prof. Dr. M.M.I. Hammouda
Member Research Committee Member Research Committee

AAPPPPRROOVVEEDD BBYY::
______________________________
Prof. Dr. M.S.I. Alvi
Thesis Supervisor/Internal Examiner

___________________________ __________________________
Prof. Dr. Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry Dr. Muhammad Zubair Khan
External Examiner External Examiner
AABBSSTTRRAACCTT

This thesis presents those factors that are found to mainly affect the satisfaction and
stress levels of engineering students in Pakistan. Students form different public and
private sector engineering universities of Punjab are selected for this purpose. Data is
randomly collected with the help of two surveyors. Reliability of the two surveyors is
confirmed with the help of Measurement System Analysis. Questionnaires are based on
students’ expectations from their respective institutions. Randomly collected data is
analyzed on software MINITAB 14. Six sigma techniques of Measurement System
Analysis, Affinity diagram, Pareto analysis, SIPOC (Supplier Input Process Output
Customer) analysis, Cause and Effect Matrix, Scatter plots and Person correlation co-
efficient are used for reaching the most significant factors.
Results indicate that teaching skills of teachers are found to mainly affect the satisfaction
level of engineering students. On further probe, it is observed that communication and
interactive skills are the most vital teaching skills that influence the student satisfaction.
Further elaborating the communication skills, it is revealed that interactive behavior of
teachers and their clear concepts deeply affect the satisfaction level of students.
Similarly, careless marking by the teachers are found to produce maximum stresses
among the male engineering students, while, on the other hand, teachers’ discouraging
attitude to take girls on industrial trips and their lack of conducting class tests are
responsible for developing stresses among female engineering students. Moreover, poor
command of English language as well as lack of personal confidence are some of the
factors that are found to create maximum stresses in the students belonging remote and
backward areas of Pakistan. Improvement strategies are then developed to enhance the
communication and interaction skills of teachers. Significant increase in the satisfaction
level of the students is observed after the implementation of the strategies.
Identification of these factors can guide the educational leadership of these institutions to
precisely focus their resources in the above mentioned factors for the best satisfaction of
their students, as it will certainly improve the transfer and creation of knowledge among
these students.

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AACCKKNNOOWWLLEEDDGGEEMMEENNTTSS

I have all the praise for Almighty Allah, who has been very kind to me throughout my life
and has always been making arrangements for my help. I am deeply obliged to my
advisor, Prof. Dr. M. S. I. Alvi for his continuous guidance throughout my research. His
encouraging suggestions and comments have helped a lot in the completion of my thesis.
My greatest intellectual debt is to Prof. Dr. M. M. I. Hammouda for providing me constant
advice through out the various phases of this work. His invaluable experience of research
has helped me on number of occasions to correct my perceptions.
My biggest debt is to my parents, who have contributed a lot towards enriching my life, by
providing me a happy childhood and constantly encouraging and supporting me to search
for the truth and knowledge. I also thank my brother and sister for their moral support,
especially my brother Imran for providing me relevant literature during my work.
I must express my deepest gratitude to my wife Fareeha, my two sons, Haider and
Hashim and my daughter Mariyam ; who suffered the most because of my long standing
commitments with this work. Indeed the major credit of all my achievements during the
course of this work goes to their sustained patience and moral support. Of all the people
who have contributed for this work, Fareeha’s contribution is the greatest.
At the end, I would like to pay my richest tributes to Lady. Dr. Kausar Ali, who expressed
her desire eight years ago to see me, accomplished the task of getting doctorate. May
Allah shower all his blessings on her soul. She is not in this world, but she will always live
with me. I can never forget those memorable days, which I have spent with her.

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SSUUMMMMAARRYY
Since the creation of this universe, human beings have been striving hard to progress and
improve their standard of living. In the attainment of this objective, leadership of different
times has always played the decisive role. Ability of these leaders to make correct
decisions and look into future have mostly distinguished them from the common man. Like
every human being, who needs some tools and techniques to make his job effective,
leaders have always been banking on their own knowledge and expertise to enhance
his/her vision and problem solving skills. Proper management of the knowledge gives
them an opportunity to look far ahead from their contemporaries. It is a misconception that
knowledge is information; rather knowledge is the know-how and ability to utilize the
available information in a way that it creates something valuable for the individual as well
as for the society and the newly emerging field of knowledge management provides an
insight to effectively handle this phenomenon of twenty first century.
Importance of knowledge management has also increased manifold in the educational
institutions due to its role in human development and learning. Educational leadership of
these institutions is considered to play an effective role in the transfer of knowledge from
teachers to students, besides creation of knowledge among them. In this regard,
utilization of knowledge management as a tool definitely enhances the quality of their
output.
Scope of the present research has been confined to the identification of factors that
hampers the process of effective knowledge transfer from teachers to students.
Improvement strategies have been subsequently developed for one of the identified
factors to ensure the validity of investigated factors.
The present research was carried out in the engineering institutions of the Province of
Punjab. Different public and private sector universities were selected for this purpose.
Questionnaires were developed on the basis of preliminary survey with the students of
these institutions, in which the expectations of these students were organized with the
help of affinity diagram. Six–sigma tool of Measurement System Analysis was applied to
ensure the reliability of two surveyors, who were trained to collect data in the research.
Three different students were questioned by both of them three times each with a gap of
one day between the interviews and the collected data was then analyzed on MINITAB

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14. It was observed that the variation in results due to the repeatability and reproducibility
errors of the two surveyors had come within the normal range defined by the Automobile
Industry action Group (AIAG). After the confirmation of data collection reliability, the
surveyors were given the task of data collection. Students were randomly selected for this
purpose and the questions were randomly distributed in the questionnaire to minimize the
effects of bias. In the first type of questionnaires (Appendix A1, A2, A3), students were
given the two Likert type scales containing five points each to rate the importance and
satisfaction of each question. Similarly, in the second type of questionnaires (Appendix
A4, A5, A6), they were offered another scale to express their level of stress in each
question. In the first scale, any of the points on the designed five point scale except
“satisfied” and “highly satisfied” was considered as a complaint, while in the second scale,
any of the point except the two points (1= not at all part of my life and 2= only slightly part
of my life) was taken as a complaint. In this manner, total number of complaints was
numbered. Pareto analysis was used to separate those complaints, which created 80
percent of problems from those creating just 20 percent problems. SIPOC diagram was
used to identify the inputs and outputs along with their suppliers and customers of these
short listed complaints. Tool of Cause and Effect Matrix (C&E) was used to develop a
correlation between these inputs and the outputs identified in the SIPOC diagram. For this
purpose, appropriate correlation values were assumed. These values were then multiplied
with the average of the priorities given by the students to these questions in their
feedback. Summation of these values was written in the last row and last column
respectively. Those inputs and the output with maximum scores were identified. Scatter
plots were then used to establish the kind of relationships between these inputs and the
output. For this purpose, average satisfaction level of the whole questionnaire was plotted
on the Y-axis and the average satisfaction levels of the selected inputs were plotted on
the X-axis. Finally, Pearson correlation co-efficient was used to establish the strengths of
relationship between the inputs and the outputs.
Results indicated that teaching skills of teachers were found to mainly affect the
satisfaction level of engineering students. On further probe, it was observed that
communication and interactive skills were the most vital teaching skills that influenced the
student satisfaction. Further elaborating the communication skills, it was found that
interactive behavior of teachers and their clear concepts deeply affected the satisfaction
level of students. Similarly, careless evaluation and marking by the teachers were found
to produce maximum stress among the male engineering students, while, on the other
hand, teachers’ discouraging attitude to take girls on industrial trips and their lack of

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conducting class tests were responsible for developing stress among female engineering
students. Moreover, poor command of English language as well as lack of personal
confidence were some of the factors that were found to create maximum stress in the
students belonging to remote and backward areas of Pakistan.
Improvement strategies were then formulated against one of the investigated factors.
These strategies were then practically implemented with the help of different teachers.
Same questionnaire of teachers’ communication skills was used and data was collected
with the help of the same surveyors. Significant increase of 20 percent in the satisfaction
level of students was found after the implementation of the strategies. It demonstrated that
the factors, which were identified in the present research, were reliable enough to be
considered for further research and improvement. Identification of these factors can guide
the educational leadership of the institutions to precisely focus the resources in the above
mentioned factors for the best satisfaction of the students, thus ensuring an improvement
in the transfer and creation of knowledge among their students.

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TTAABBLLEE OOFF CCOONNTTEENNTTSS

Abstract i
Acknowledgement ii
Summary iii
Table of Contents vi
List of Figures ix
List of Tables x
Abbreviations xi
CCHHAAPPTTEERR 11 IINNTTRROODDUUCCTTIIOONN
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Research Problem 8
1.3 Research Objectives 9
1.4 Scope of the Present Research 10
CCHHAAPPTTEERR 22 RREESSEEAARRCCHH MMEETTHHOODDOOLLOOGGYY
2.1 Affinity Diagram 11
2.2 Measurement System Analysis 11
2.3 Likert Type Scale 12
2.4 Pareto Analysis 12
2.5 SIPOC Analysis 12
2.6 Cause and Effect Matrix 13
2.7 Scatter Plots 13
2.8 Pearson Correlation Co-efficient 14
CCHHAAPPTTEERR 33 LLIITTEERRAATTUURREE RREEVVIIEEWW
3.1 Leadership 15

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3.2 Educational Leadership 18
3.3 Knowledge Management 25
3.4 Student Satisfaction 46
3.5 Teachers’ Teaching Skills 48
3.6 Teachers’ Communication Skills 50
3.7 Common Stresses among Male Students 57
3.8 Common Stresses among Female Students 61
3.9 Common Stresses among Remote Area Students 66
CCHHAAPPTTEERR 44 RREESSUULLTTSS AANNDD DDIISSCCUUSSSSIIOONN 7711
CCHHAAPPTTEERR 55 CCOONNCCLLUUSSIIOONNSS 127
CCHHAAPPTTEERR 66 RREEFFEERREENNCCEESS 130
AAPPPPEENNDDIIXX--AA LLIISSTT OOFF QQUUEESSTTIIOONNNNAAIIRREESS
A-1 Student Satisfaction Form 168
A-2 Student Satisfaction Form of Teachers’ Teaching Skills 169
A-3 Student Satisfaction Form of Teachers’ Communication Skills 170
A-4 Stress Calculation Form of Male Students 171
A-5 Stress Calculation Form of Female Students 172
A-6 Stress Calculation Form Remote Area Students 173
AAPPPPEENNDDIIXX--BB AABBSSTTRRAACCTTSS OOFF PPAAPPEERRSS UUNNDDEERR RREEVVIIEEWW
B-1 Analysis of Teachers’ Teaching Skills Affecting the Satisfaction
Level of Engineering Students 174
B-2 Analysis of Teachers’ Communication Skills Affecting the
Satisfaction Level of Engineering Students 175
B-3 Analysis of Factors Affecting the Stress level of Male Engineering
Students 176
B-4 Analysis of Factors Affecting the Stress level of Female Engineering
Students 177

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