Modifying the Syllabus on Construction Materials and Methods to Better Prepare Construction Students for Upper-level Courses, Co-ops, or Internships

Educators often find out that students in upper-level courses are not prepared as they should be to tackle upper-level courses. The two possible reasons could be that the foundational prerequisite courses completed by the students may have gaps in them, or that the students were not required to complete the foundational prerequisites. The lack of properly grounded foundational prerequisite courses also has a profound impact on field readiness and student ability to confidently tackle duties assigned to them while on co-ops or internships. As such, some of the students may predominantly learn from on-the-job experience, as different from a combination of on-the-job experience and in-classroom experience. The necessary prerequisites should be made available to students to fill the learning gaps, and the coverage of the prerequisites should go far enough. The objective of this paper is to evaluate current practice and make necessary modifications to the construction materials and methods course (a lower-level course) to better prepare students in the construction related programs. The research follows a qualitative research method. The research evaluated the need for prerequisites, as well as the need to design prerequisite courses with relevant course content. A synthesis of current materials covered in the construction materials and methods course was then conducted. In addition, the research analyzed job advertisement data on construction field duties sought by construction companies seeking students for co-op, as well as data on what the students recorded as construction field duties completed while on co-op. Finally, the research presents the proposed improvement and recommendations for modifying current construction materials and methods course content. The significance of this research is that the improved version of the construction materials and methods course could be used to better prepare students in construction related programs.