The experiences of part-time students in civil engineering compared with those of fulltime students

This paper was presented at the 2008 Engineering Conference - Innovation Good Practice and Research in Engineering Education.

This paper presents the results of two studies of parttime undergraduate students of civil engineering at Coventry University. The first (presented in summary as the details are published elsewhere) involved scrutiny of data; a questionnaire to allow comparison of factual information on parttime and fulltime students; and interviews with parttime students and graduates. The study confirmed that parttime students outperformed fulltime students and identified that the greatest advantage came from the skills attitudes and motivation that parttime students have developed in the workplace.