Investigating learning methods, assessment methods, and generic skills achievement in engineering education

University engineering education is a vital element in developing professionalism of our future engineers. Learning approaches including learning styles and assessment methods used in the engineering education system is directly affecting the quality of the graduates and generic skills achievement. This paper investigates the effectiveness of different learning methods, assessment methods, and achievement in generic skills used in a tertiary university in Australia. Questionnaire survey and interview discussions are conducted. It is found that students did not put enough efforts in attending lectures and tutorials, and revising lectures' and tutorials' materials after lectures and tutorials. The survey results are also found that peers' encouragement has a big influence for students' studies. Detailed analyses are given and comparisons between toward attitude and toward understanding learning approaches are made. For generic skills achievement, it is found that both undergraduate and postgraduate students ranked the ability to undertake problems, formulation and solution as the most important skill for their programs. This reflects that all students possess the competent and confident levels in applying in-depth technical knowledge to real-life problems. However, undergraduate and postgraduate students do not consider communication and lifelong leaning respectively as important skills for their future career. Recommendations for students, lecturers and leadership in the programs to improve the existing university education system are also provided.