Enlivening the engineering classroom through popular culture: a survey of usage

Abstract

Teaching engineering subject matter can be a drab affair using conventional teaching methods alone. Perhaps the teaching-learning situation can be improved through the inclusion of elements of popular culture like fiction, films, comic books, songs and cartoons. The inclusion of elements of popular culture should help make the teaching-learning process more upbeat and entertaining. This paper seeks to gauge the extent to which these elements have been incorporated by engineering instructors in their classroom to enliven lessons and also to identify the kind of problems that they encounter. If these elements have been missing from their array of teaching techniques, then what could be the reasons for the omission? The paper is based on a survey done on several engineering instructors at several institutions of higher learning in northern Malaysia.