Intervention Programme

The Implementation of Buddy System Programme amongst Civil Engineering Students

Abstract

 The Buddy system is a peer-to-peer assisting and monitoring system where a group of individuals (peers) work as a team collaboratively to reach the desired outcome. Due to the constant high failure rate attained by the students in one of the fundamental engineering courses; Fluid Mechanics, the School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Pasir Gudang Campus have introduced various initiatives or interventions, including the introduction of the Buddy System Programme to overcome this problem. The purpose of this research is to analyse and compare the performance of a group of diploma students before and after the implementation of the Buddy System Programme for two semesters (September 2017 - January 2018 and March 2019 – July 2019). The findings revealed that the percentage of the failure rate for semester September 2017 – January 2018 dropped when the student-centred approach was implemented. Meanwhile, for semester March 2019 – July 2019 when the teacher-centred approach was used, the percentage of failure rate showed a slight decrement from the previous semester without the implementation of the Buddy System Programme. The results conveyed an initiation in the teaching method to motivate students towards independent learning culture and keeping students with average performance occupied for the whole semesters by interacting continuously with the mentors.