Geomechanics and Geoenergy Journal

Geomechanics and Geoenergy Journal

Factors affecting the quality of teaching and learning of geomechanics engineering students

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Head of the Education Department, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Khajeh Nasiruddin Toosi University of Technology
2 PhD student in Technology Management, Tehran University of Science and Research, Iran
Abstract
Geomechanics plays an important role in developing energy resources and promoting sustainability. In many parts of the world, potentially important oil resources in unconformable shale formations with high permeability and heterogeneity, reservoirs in high-temperature and high-pressure thermal waters, and thermal systems of rocks and hot geofluids can be a source of substantial thermal energy. Therefore, educating and training specialists in geomechanics is an important topic. For this reason, the present article examines the factors affecting the quality of education and learning among geomechanical engineering students. To achieve this goal, a pragmatist paradigm and a mixed-methods approach with a sequential exploratory design were used. To collect data, 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted with targeted industrial and academic experts, and latent category analysis was used. To determine the relationships between factors affecting the quality of education, 37 geomechanics and education experts were selected purposively. The DEMATEL results and interrelationships show that factors related to the professor have important characteristics (influence/effect); from these, factors related to the student, industry, curriculum, and management are ranked in terms of their influence on other factors. Industry was the most influential factor on other factors; the teacher factor was the next most influential, and both are purely influential factors. The most influential factors were curriculum, students, and management, respectively.
Keywords
Subjects