A study on the professional development among the faculty of mathematics in engineering colleges

Indian Engineering Education represents one of the largest educational systems in the world. The challenges posed by this rapidly growing system in our country are extremely complex. Engineering education is facing a number of challenges with increasing societal, organisational and professional student's demands. This has a direct effect on the academics who are constantly striving to find ways to improve the effectiveness of their teaching. Developing countries like India needs high quality faculty members in turn to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics, necessitating the environments for effective professional development. However, many professional development programs for mathematics faculty fall short because they fail to consider the faculty needs.

The present study is an attempt to address this issue with a survey method. It was conducted among 50 faculty members of mathematics in self-financing engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu. A set of well designed questionnaires called Modified Mathematics Faculty Inventory of Needs was distributed among the faculty members. The items in the questionnaires were divided into 5 categories, namely Materials, New knowledge, Methods of teaching, Teaching marginal students and Technology use. The faculty members were asked to report their needs. Descriptive statistics were applied to analyse the data. The results revealed that the highest rated needs were related to: (i) application of mathematics to its related engineering discipline, (ii) mathematics related career issues (iii) methods to motivate students. The least preferred needs were related to: (i) selection of appropriate teaching method, (ii) integrating ICT in teaching (iii) employing individualized instructional strategies. The results of the findings were discussed with existing literature.