Journal of Engineering Education Transformations

Abstract

In current situation, students must have theoretical as well as more practical knowledge about RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) which is one of the core course of Computer Science and Engineering. This course is also of paramount importance in the competitive examination like GATE, Technical Aptitude Test etc. SQL (Structured Query Language) is a domain-specific language used for manipulating data held in a RDBMS. Since SQL is used for softwares design in the industry, students should have in-depth knowledge of this language as well as basics of RDBMS. In this study, WRITE-instructional strategy is used to teach the course Database Engineering. WRITE consist of five phases which stand for W- Watch, R- Read, I – Implement, T – Test and E – Evaluate. In W-Watch phase, students watch the videos created by the instructor. All videos have the same format containing Learning Outcomes, Topic description, Think & Write containing the quiz on covered topic, content following the Think & Write and Reference. In R-Read phase, students read the instruction given in the handouts related to the assignments to be completed. In I – Implement phase, the students implement the assignments while in T-Test phase, students gives the test on the SQL. Finally E-Evaluate phase is used to evaluate the test as well assignments completed in the lab sessions. This study focuses on improving the critical thinking and problem solving ability of students. Two group post-test method is considered to check the effectiveness of this method. The participants involved in the activity are 70 undergraduates from engineering stream. The Learning objectives (LOs) are: LO1 – Decide on selecting the appropriate relations from given set of relations required to write the query for given problem statement. LO2 – Write the query for given problem statement using SQL. The research question is – whether WRITE instructional strategy improves the critical thinking and problem solving ability of the students? The result as well statistical analysis using t-Test showed the significant improvement in the students. Also the feedback was conducted to know the perception of students about this activity.

Keywords- SQL, WRITE, Liker’s Scale, t-Test.