Interactive Teaching Intervention For Civil Engineering Education: An Action Research Study

Abstract

The increasing demand for outcome-based education in civil engineering has promoted a shift from the lecture-centred instruction toward an interactive and student-centred learning approaches. KNS2133 Structural Analysis with specifically the Moment Distribution Method (MDM) for statically indeterminate structures, remains a challenging topic for the undergraduate students due to its fundamental concepts, multi-step procedures and displacement-based reasoning requirements. This study presents an action research investigation into the implementation of an interactive, technology-enhanced teaching intervention for MDM within a Structural Analysis course. The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the students’ learning experiences, perceived learning outcomes and motivation responses following the intervention. The specific objectives are to: (i) examine the students’ conceptual understanding and procedural confidence in applying MDM, (ii) evaluate the effectiveness of interactive teaching strategies and digital tools and (iii) assess students’ motivation, engagement and overall evaluation of the learning experience. A descriptive action research design was adopted in this study by involving the undergraduate civil engineering students enrolled in KNS2133 Structural Analysis at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. About 80% of the enrolled students voluntarily take part in this statistic survey. The intervention incorporated step-by-step worked examples, QR-based diagnostic activities and integration of live digital tools such as Whiteboard.fi and eLEAP to facilitate real-time interaction and formative feedback. Data were collected using a post-lesson Google Form survey and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings indicate that strong positive student perceptions across conceptual understanding, teaching effectiveness, technology integration and perceived learning outcomes. Students reported with high confidence in stiffness computation, MDM tabulation and internal force determination, while comparative lower confidence was being observed in constructing shear force and bending moment diagrams. These substantial findings highlight areas for further instructional reinforcement. The novelty of this study lies in its context-specific application of technology-supported interactive teaching to a traditional structural analysis method, providing empirical classroom-level evidence to support the pedagogical integration of active learning strategies in civil engineering education.