Browsing by Author "Sileshi, Mesfin"

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    The Curriculum Development Process of the New Engineering Education Program and Its Practices in Ethiopia: The Case of Three Higher Engineering Education Institutions
    (Addis Ababa University, 2016-01) Sileshi, Mesfin; Mekonnen, Dawit (PhD)
    The overall aim of this dissertation is to contribute to the improvement of the engineering curriculum development and engineering students’ learning in Ethiopia by utilizing both theoretical and empirical enquiry. The study tried to provide insights into the major processes and factors that influence engineering curriculum development and its implementation process in general and investigates the impact of the curriculum development and implementation process on the quality of engineering education and students’ learning, from the perspectives of stake holders. The study is undertaken within three engineering higher education institutions. The research tried to provide answers for the following four research questions. (1) Why was the engineering curriculum change initiated? And how was it developed? (2) How do deans, teachers and students view and describe engineering curriculum and the congruency between engineering curriculum implementation and curriculum expectations? (3) What are the factors that influenced engineering curriculum development? (4) How do stakeholders assess their involvement in engineering curriculum design process and in its relevance? What are their present understanding of the new engineering graduates in terms of their possession of engineering knowledge, skills and competencies? A qualitative multiple-case study design was employed to undertake the study. Primary data were collected from purposely selected engineering teachers, students, industry personnel, and experts from the MoE using in-depth interview and focus group discussion methods. Document analysis was also used as a source for secondary data. The data collected from the different sources were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis method based on inductive category development procedure. The findings of the study revealed that the reform in engineering education and its curriculum development was driven by economic interest, which was expressed in terms of producing skilled human resource that would work in industry and boost its productivity. The idea of the reform and the curriculum development process was a top-down process initiated by the ECBP under the leadership of MoCB. Teachers’ participation in the curriculum development process was initially one of learning from the ECBP and organizing it in the curriculum; not in decision making. Industry’s involvement in engineering curriculum matters was found to be occasional and not in a way it puts significant impact on curricular decisions. Curriculum implementation which involves teaching, learning, and assessment, was knotted with multiple problems of: poor dissemination of the ideas of the reformed curricula, dissatisfied teaching staff and teachers absenteeism, teaching and learning crippled with shortage of resources, shallow students’ learning, and pseudo assessment mechanism. Based on the findings of the study, a number of recommendations are forwarded to improve engineering curriculum development and students’ learning which include the need for more participation of stakeholders in the process of curriculum development, the necessity of creating more awareness and understanding of the changes in curriculum within the engineering teaching staff, the need for more and continuous training of engineering teachers to update and improve their teaching and assessment skills abreast their engineering profession. The need for the development of educational policies that support the alignment of engineering teaching with assessment, and finally areas for further theoretical research and empirical enquiry are also suggested to support the improvement of the engineering teaching and learning development within the engineering and technology institutions in Ethiopia. __________ Key words: Engineering curriculum, curriculum development, engineering teaching, qualitative research.
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    The Curriculum Development Process of The New Engineering Education Program and Its Practices in Ethiopia: The Case of Three Higher Engineering Education Institutions
    (Addis Ababa Univerisity, 2016-01) Sileshi, Mesfin; Mekonnen, Dawit(PhD)
    The overall aim of this dissertation is to contribute to the improvement of the engineering curriculum development and engineering students’ learning in Ethiopia by utilizing both theoretical and empirical enquiry. The study tried to provide insights into the major processes and factors that influence engineering curriculum development and its implementation process in general and investigates the impact of the curriculum development and implementation process on the quality of engineering education and students’ learning, from the perspectives of stake holders. The study is undertaken within three engineering higher education institutions. The research tried to provide answers for the following four research questions. (1) Why was the engineering curriculum change initiated? And how was it developed? (2) How do deans, teachers and students view and describe engineering curriculum and the congruency between engineering curriculum implementation and curriculum expectations? (3) What are the factors that influenced engineering curriculum development? (4) How do stakeholders assess their involvement in engineering curriculum design process and in its relevance? What are their present understanding of the new engineering graduates in terms of their possession of engineering knowledge, skills and competencies? A qualitative multiple-case study design was employed to undertake the study. Primary data were collected from purposely selected engineering teachers, students, industry personnel, and experts from the MoE using in-depth interview and focus group discussion methods. Document analysis was also used as a source for secondary data. The data collected from the different sources were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis method based on inductive category development procedure. The findings of the study revealed that the reform in engineering education and its curriculum development was driven by economic interest, which was expressed in terms of producing skilled human resource that would work in industry and boost its productivity. The idea of the reform and the curriculum development process was a top-down process initiated by the ECBP under the leadership of MoCB. Teachers’ participation in the curriculum development process was initially one of learning from the ECBP and organizing it in the curriculum; not in decision making. Industry’s involvement in engineering curriculum matters was found to be occasional and not in a way it puts significant impact on curricular decisions. Curriculum implementation which involves teaching, learning, and assessment, was knotted with multiple problems of: poor dissemination of the ideas of the reformed curricula, dissatisfied teaching staff and teachers absenteeism, teaching and learning crippled with shortage of resources, shallow students’ learning, and pseudo assessment mechanism. Based on the findings of the study, a number of recommendations are forwarded to improve engineering curriculum development and students’ learning which include the need for more participation of stakeholders in the process of curriculum development, the necessity of creating more awareness and understanding of the changes in curriculum within the engineering teaching staff, the need for more and continuous training of engineering teachers to update and improve their teaching and assessment skills abreast their engineering profession. The need for the development of educational policies that support the alignment of engineering teaching with assessment, and finally areas for further theoretical research and empirical enquiry are also suggested to support the improvement of the engineering teaching and learning development within the engineering and technology institutions in Ethiopia.
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    The Curriculum Development Process of the New Engineering Education Program and its Practices In Ethiopia: The Case of Three Higher Engineering Education Institutions
    (Addis Ababa University, 2016-01) Sileshi, Mesfin; Mekonnen, Dawit (PhD)
    The overall aim of this dissertation is to contribute to the improvement of the engineering curriculum development and engineering students’ learning in Ethiopia by utilizing both theoretical and empirical enquiry. The study tried to provide insights into the major processes and factors that influence engineering curriculum development and its implementation process in general and investigates the impact of the curriculum development and implementation process on the quality of engineering education and students’ learning, from the perspectives of stake holders. The study is undertaken within three engineering higher education institutions. The research tried to provide answers for the following four research questions. (1) Why was the engineering curriculum change initiated? And how was it developed? (2) How do deans, teachers and students view and describe engineering curriculum and the congruency between engineering curriculum implementation and curriculum expectations? (3) What are the factors that influenced engineering curriculum development? (4) How do stakeholders assess their involvement in engineering curriculum design process and in its relevance? What are their present understanding of the new engineering graduates in terms of their possession of engineering knowledge, skills and competencies? A qualitative multiple-case study design was employed to undertake the study. Primary data were collected from purposely selected engineering teachers, students, industry personnel, and experts from the MoE using in-depth interview and focus group discussion methods. Document analysis was also used as a source for secondary data. The data collected from the different sources were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis method based on inductive category development procedure. The findings of the study revealed that the reform in engineering education and its curriculum development was driven by economic interest, which was expressed in terms of producing skilled human resource that would work in industry and boost its productivity. The idea of the reform and the curriculum development process was a top-down process initiated by the ECBP under the leadership of MoCB. Teachers’ participation in the curriculum development process was initially one of learning from the ECBP and organizing it in the curriculum; not in decision making. Industry’s involvement in engineering curriculum matters was found to be occasional and not in a way it puts significant impact on curricular decisions. Curriculum implementation which involves teaching, learning, and assessment, was knotted with multiple problems of: poor dissemination of the ideas of the reformed curricula, dissatisfied teaching staff and teachers absenteeism, teaching and learning crippled with shortage of resources, shallow students’ learning, and pseudo assessment mechanism. Based on the findings of the study, a number of recommendations are forwarded to improve engineering curriculum development and students’ learning which include the need for more participation of stakeholders in the process of curriculum development, the necessity of creating more awareness and understanding of the changes in curriculum within the engineering teaching staff, the need for more and continuous training of engineering teachers to update and improve their teaching and assessment skills abreast their engineering profession. The need for the development of educational policies that support the alignment of engineering teaching with assessment, and finally areas for further theoretical research and empirical enquiry are also suggested to support the improvement of the engineering teaching and learning development within the engineering and technology institutions in Ethiopia. Key words: Engineering curriculum, curriculum development, engineering teaching, qualitative research
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    Effectiveness of Content-Based Image Clustering Algorithms
    (Addis Ababa University, 2007-03) Sileshi, Mesfin; Gambäck, Björn(Professor )
    Retrieval of a set of similar image documents requires clustering the images based on their similar features. Clustered images are utilized by Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) and querying system that requires effective query matching in large image databases. Contentbased image clustering provides a more efficient method of management and retrieval of large number of images documents. The Content-based image clustering facilitates users to browse through only a particular subset of related image documents in an efficient manner. This study focus in validating the two commonly image clustering algorithms namely: hierarchical and k-means. The validation is based on a set of selected MPEG-7 image feature descriptors. The similarity measure input to these clustering algorithms considers both quantitative and predicate-based similarity measures. We computed two similarity measures total color-based similarity matrix as a weighted sum of the MPEG-7 color descriptors and total similarity matrix as a weighted sum of color, texture and shape features. The proposed metric to measure the effectiveness of clustering subsets of COREL color photo images is with respect to their semantic meaning. Shannon’s information theory is selected in the measuring the image’s cluster cohesiveness. The clusters formed are said to be well separated when the distinct clusters formed are associated to a specific image semantic. The separation among clusters becomes better when the semantic association of images to a cluster is predictable. The intra-cluster cohesiveness is also captured by the Shannon’s entropy measure in measuring the clusters separation. The best quality clusters are formed by the hierarchical method that uses the average-linkage method when the same total color similarity matrix is input to all clustering algorithms. Experimental result shows that the quality of clusters formed by k-means clustering is not better than any of the three hierarchical methods. Hierarchical method which uses averagelinkage produced quality of clusters three times better as compared to k-means. Even though weighted texture and shape similarity measures were used in addition to total color the average HACM is the best method compared to both the k-means in the formation of both - x - semantic and cluster cohesive clusters. The other different result obtained is that the addition of texture and shape feature degrades cluster quality for all hierarchical methods.
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    Effectiveness of Content-Based Image Clustering Algorithms
    (Addis Ababa University, 2007-03) Sileshi, Mesfin; Gambäck, Björn(Professor )
    Retrieval of a set of similar image documents requires clustering the images based on their similar features. Clustered images are utilized by Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) and querying system that requires effective query matching in large image databases. Contentbased image clustering provides a more efficient method of management and retrieval of large number of images documents. The Content-based image clustering facilitates users to browse through only a particular subset of related image documents in an efficient manner. This study focus in validating the two commonly image clustering algorithms namely: hierarchical and k-means. The validation is based on a set of selected MPEG-7 image feature descriptors. The similarity measure input to these clustering algorithms considers both quantitative and predicate-based similarity measures. We computed two similarity measures total color-based similarity matrix as a weighted sum of the MPEG-7 color descriptors and total similarity matrix as a weighted sum of color, texture and shape features. The proposed metric to measure the effectiveness of clustering subsets of COREL color photo images is with respect to their semantic meaning. Shannon’s information theory is selected in the measuring the image’s cluster cohesiveness. The clusters formed are said to be well separated when the distinct clusters formed are associated to a specific image semantic. The separation among clusters becomes better when the semantic association of images to a cluster is predictable. The intra-cluster cohesiveness is also captured by the Shannon’s entropy measure in measuring the clusters separation. The best quality clusters are formed by the hierarchical method that uses the average-linkage method when the same total color similarity matrix is input to all clustering algorithms. Experimental result shows that the quality of clusters formed by k-means clustering is not better than any of the three hierarchical methods. Hierarchical method which uses averagelinkage produced quality of clusters three times better as compared to k-means. Even though weighted texture and shape similarity measures were used in addition to total color the average HACM is the best method compared to both the k-means in the formation of both - x - semantic and cluster cohesive clusters. The other different result obtained is that the addition of texture and shape feature degrades cluster quality for all hierarchical methods.